


Just Another Ending

by kilozombie



Series: Queen Alphys [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: First chapter is just a setup for the rest, Multi, Post-Neutral Route - Near Genocide Ending, it's not all about that ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 87,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kilozombie/pseuds/kilozombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk killed nearly everyone in the Underground one year ago, and as a consequence, massive changes have occurred in leadership. The new Queen, Alphys, attempts to keep everything together. Her assistant, Sans, believes their time is running out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Failed Genocide

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QwRs_elUfI

“I really should have killed you when I had the chance.”

Alphys hung up the phone.

It stayed in her hand for a second. She wrapped her claws around it, feeling, and considered throwing it down onto the stony floor as hard as she could. But it wasn’t really her phone. It would have wiped the anger off her face for a second-- the false smile, her eyes… but it wasn’t really her phone, and it wouldn’t last long. She clenched it for one last second, and then silently held it out for Sans to grab.

“sorry,” he’d say. “that wasn’t easy, i can tell.”

Alphys stopped grinning. It had felt good to yell at Frisk for… just a second. Just a second. “I’ve been thinking about… what to say… for months.”

Sans murmured, “yeah, that makes two of us,” and delicately took the tiny flip phone from her hands.

The throne room looked a lot better than it really was. From the ceiling, dotted with holes leading to the surface, faint beams of moonlight landed on the flowers below, glowing, shimmering. The gold chair at the front hadn’t been used in a year. In the dimness, the splotches of light, there the two of them were-- the last two left who could lead. And, Alphys reckoned, they were running out of monsters to lead.

“It went to voicemail. Maybe… Frisk’s dead.”

“i have a feeling nothing is gonna kill that kid anytime soon.”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

Sans shoved his phone into his pocket.

The two of them walked close. Not… too close. Just enough. It felt safer that way-- at least Sans felt a little safer. He always assumed that he was impossible to beat, that if the circumstances required, he could save people… he could help people… but first he couldn’t save Papyrus, and then he could hardly save himself. The halls next to them rumbled with every footstep gently, the faint light from the other end of the tunnel their only guide.

Then it was the Last Corridor, with the same hazy blue reflections emerging from the line of tall windows to their right, and a little stain right in the middle, where Frisk had given him a wound in the stomach. It was held back, in some ways. It was purposeful. Sans had seen that kind of purpose before. Somehow, he sensed a lack of pure evil in the child, even though saying such a thing to Alphys would probably make her scream.

“so that’s it, then? nobody else you want to call, while we’re at it?”

“I-I guess that was tiring enough.”

“napstablook? uh… anyone?”

“Blook’s… Blooky’s fine.” She stumbled a little in her walk. Sans reached out as fast as he could and took Alphys’ hand silently. She turned to him, and managed one of those exhausted little smiles-- the split-second ones, the ones nobody could notice. Except Sans. He saw them every time. He needed to see them.

“what about MK?”

*Alphys jerked up suddenly and froze.

“Oh, God. I s-sent him to Snowdin, w-without… with… without his phone…” She shook and started to speed up down the deep blue hallway.

Sputtering, Sans followed behind. “it’s only been twenty minutes! he’s probably not even there yet!”

“I-I gotta,” she managed, “I gotta get to him in time. Could be some of the ones from the ruins, a-after him.”

“you’ve gotta take a breath, alphys.”

She took a breath and stopped in her tracks. It didn’t help. Alphys took a glance out one of the windows-- a hazy, dim-lit path carved into the rock, leading to the surface. One of the windows was broken. She’d woken up late at night crying once and tried to get out through that window, but… the barrier was everywhere. All around them. Always. “We can’t l-lose any more people.”

“i know. and we can’t lose you, either.” He gave his own little grin, wider than usual- but his brow had been stuck looking forlorn since Papyrus died. His… bone-brow. Alphys would have laughed about it, a very, very long time ago. “just take it easy. we’ll take the ferry. it’ll only be ten minutes.”

Alphys knew the route pretty well. She’d taken it more in the last year than in her entire life. Before, visits to the throne room, to Asgore… were rare. But now it was every day. Every hour. Every waking second, she was a leader… and she had to be a leader.

A little glance to her side, and the new Queen saw what she ruled. Endless, it seemed like. Stony buildings rising from the earth- the City. It was bustling, somehow. Half the population and it was bustling. She supposed there were a lot of people in the distance who actually respected her, their numbers thin and their heads low, but with their eyes facing her like a gleaming jewel of hope, which she was not. There was a plaque, a large monolith-like stone by the stairs leading down to the city, with her policies engraved upon-- which she supposed she should probably revise again. But there wasn’t time, and the two of them kept hurrying down and down stairs and steps and elevators until they’d reached the river by Hotland.

Sans stepped carefully onto the thin, flat boat.

It rocked gently in the cool, dark waters. Alphys followed suit. There wasn’t a lot of room, but… enough.

The hooded figure at the front, who had gotten very familiar with the two, nodded in sync with the waves underneath and asked lightly, “Snowdin or Waterfall?”

“the former,” said Sans. He preferred being gentle with the River Person. The ride was smooth, not too long. The riverside had a few good people on it. Now that Waterfall and Hotland were the only places people travelled, and the boat had become something of a public tool, plenty of monsters clustered around the riverbed and waited for that hooded figure to pass by.

River Person whispered something to the boat and it started sliding down the river in a timely fashion.

“I w-would feel a little better if you were still cracking jokes, Sans,” said Alphys.

“little out of it… something caught me off guard.”

“Y-Yeah. Me too.”

She was shaking a bit. Anxious. Her toothy face was wracked with it, anxiety, up and down, the kind Sans was all too familiar with. “you’re good to your brother. good like undyne was good, y’know?”

“I guess,” said Alphys. She managed a weak laugh.

The scenery descended from hot, to warm, to cold, very quickly. Ash turned to ice, and then there were snowy trees on either side. The road hadn’t been traveled in a while. Everyone in Snowdin had run-- if they weren’t dead already. Sans had watched it happen. Sans had let it happen. When Papyrus approached, when he just wanted to talk, when he just wanted to…

Don’t think about it, Sans.

His left eye blinked on instinct, like it always did when he reminisced about his brother. His winter coat bobbed in the gentle wind, and as the air grew colder and colder, both Sans and Alphys took a deep breath-- and prepared to enter the ghost town.

Alphys dug her claws into the snow to keep her balance.

A low fog hung over Snowdin. It was so familiar and present, like it had always been there, but in the back of her mind was a cozier place-- one she’d occasionally ride to from her lab if she wanted a break from the heat. Her and Sans had met in passing… and he used to tell her about the woman on the other side of the door. About Toriel. She knew it was Toriel now, but not then. What if she’d figured it out? What if… but it was just an if. Snowdin was real, and very, very abandoned. Save for a few shadows in the distance.

Sans took his step off the boat and thanked River Person nonchalantly.

“I see somebody,” said Alphys. Her body felt heavy. The cold had a weight.

“why did you send MK here in the first place?”

“To put flowers on… t-to… for Papyrus.”

“...oh.”

“I probably should have told you. I-I know you don’t like surprises much, anymore.”

“it would have been a nice surprise. ...thanks.”

She started her way through the ice toward the figures in the main part of Snowdin. It took longer than she expected-- every step, she sunk a little bit. But then she heard a voice-- Monster Kid, and alongside Sans she trudged as fast as she could.

A Migosp and Vegetoid, yelling and picking on him or something. It was lost in the noise. Alphys and Sans burst from the fog, both standing at about the height of the three monsters in front of them, including the Monster Kid, his striped armless self crouched down in terror.

On instinct, Sans’ left eye started to glow. A faint blue. An icy blue. He prepared to reach up his arm, but not before Alphys extended her own-- beckoning him away. She shouted, “No,” and then turned to face the two harassing MK, who was clutching in his mouth a bundle of golden flowers.

Act  
Vegetoid  
Dinner

Alphys and the Vegetoid ate some vegetables together amidst the battle. She seemed pretty good at avoiding whatever bits of magic the two were throwing at her, and somehow didn’t mind.

Mercy  
Spare

Chuckling, it hopped off into the fog.

Seemingly in a spell, the Migosp suddenly burst out into apologies and whimpers, wrapping one of its arms around Monster Kid, who still had an utterly confused and terrified look on him.

“hey, kid, glad you’re OK,” said Sans, coming close.

Sans snatched the bundle of flowers from Monster Kid’s mouth.

MK erupted into a flurry of, “I don’t like it here,” and, “Thank you, s-sis,” He skipped over to her, and they gently hugged. Migosp let off one last apology, and then sped off into the snow to catch up with Vegetoid.

A strange feeling went through Sans.

“deja vu,” he murmured.

“What?” asked Alphys.

“i feel like… i’ve seen that before. somebody dealing with monsters like that.”

She shrugged. “I-I was just, uh, trying to be nice.”

“heh. it worked.”

Alphys said softly, “MK, take the boat to Waterfall and stay home until I get back, alright? I’m sorry I forgot to give you a phone.”

He sniffled. “O-OK. I hope the flowers aren’t messed up.”

“No,” she murmured. “It’ll be fine.”

And then Monster Kid slipped into the snow, and the two left remaining took a glance at each other.

Sans didn’t feel at home. His last house, the one Papyrus actually owned… well, that was old and rotten by now, probably. Grillby had moved. All the monsters he used to buddy up with, the dogs, they were gone, too. All that was left was the wind, the soft soft wind, and it wasn’t nearly enough. He tried to keep light hearted. He tried to think of a joke. But… nothing really came to mind.

The two of them knew where they were going. In Sans’ bony fingers, the bundle of starting-to-wilt flowers, waving in the air as he clutched them tighter than he had clutched anything before. Slowly they went past the bar, then the inn, and then the shop, and then into the woods.

Flurries in the air. Dim. Lit only by the faint lights on the ceiling of the cavern. Sans pressed his hands further into his thick winter jacket.

There it was.

A little wooden cross with his brother’s name on it.

He…

didn’t know what to say.

*Sans sat down the flowers in front of Papyrus’ grave.

“sorry,” he said only. That was all he felt like he could do.

Alphys leaned to her left and wrapped her arm against Sans, held him tight, and the two just stared at the ground.

“we could go and see undyne’s, if you wanted.”

“N-Not right now.”

“it’s been so long since things were normal.”

“This… I don’t know. I g-guess this is just how it is.” She shivered from the cold.

Sans thought about something horrible.

And then he thought about something a little less horrible-- about Frisk in the hallway, the Last Corridor. Among the bright rays, the blinding sunlight through half-filtered windows, the child had simply… wounded him. He always thought Frisk was just holding back, but… somehow, he knew that wasn’t the case. Every movement was planned. From the start, Frisk knew what Sans would do, and how to do what they wanted. It wasn’t out of respect or guilt that Sans was spared-- Frisk was just in a hurry.

Oh, no.

Alphys coughed, her breath icy in the air.

“can you… come with me? i think something’s wrong.”

She turned to Sans, who had a little tear in his left eye. “Something’s… w-wrong?”

“yeah… just…” He fished in his coat pocket and produced a silver key. “i think i ought to tell you a few things.”

Back to Snowdin.

Where had Alphys even been, when Frisk was killing in the forest? With their hands bloody. With their eyes red. Filled with Determination, the kind she swore she’d never give to any living thing ever again. When that kid got to town, she could have done something after evacuating them. She could have used a trap, or a weapon. She could have sicced Metta on it… but by the time any of those things made sense to her, it was too late. They were all gone. They were all…

gone.

Sans was urgent. He nearly jogged through town, his jacket bobbing up and down with every movement, and his bony expression fading fast. The figures of trees on either side disappeared in Alphys’ peripheral as she struggled to keep up. The two were headed toward Papyrus’ house, and she hadn’t a clue why.

And then the ground, all of a sudden, rumbled. Just once. Just for a second. But they both noticed.

“What was that?” she asked plainly, her breath caught on the wind.

“something horrible,” said Sans. He didn’t sound like he was joking. Not any more.

Footsteps left in the whiteness behind them leading all the way to Sans’ old house, and then to the small, worn footpath leading to a back door. At first Alphys was skeptical, expecting something fun or happy, but… the door didn’t look like it had been opened in years. He slid the tiny metal key into the lock, and swung it open.

The interior was metal-plated and heavy, and the air almost seemed to rush out into the cold. As Sans entered, Alphys followed, and a sense of warmth filled the room.

A set of blueprints. Drawers. Papers. A tarp kept over a big, heavy thing in the corner. Ignoring the rest, the bony short figure ran over to the tarp and uncovered it.

Another rumble. The whole world felt wrong.

“What… is that?” she asked, staring at the massive hunk of metal and electronics in front of her. A half-dismantled device with a glass case, big enough for a few people to fit inside.

“a time machine, of sorts,” said Sans.

Sans fiddled with the controls on the front of the machine.

It was all garbled up. But… in a way, it made sense to him. He could, at the very least, detect inconsistencies-- with time. With space. And right now, at that moment, there was one very, very big inconsistency. Frisk.

Alphys was speechless. “it’s like i thought,” he said to her. “i had a feeling, from the beginning, that… frisk… wasn’t doing this for any good reason. they knew beforehand, every step we made, every choice we made.”

“What are you talking about? L-Like… they did this before?”

“yes… yeah. and at the end of each run through…”

The ground shook violently.

“they just wanted to hear the phone call, alphys. that was the last thing they wanted to hear. so they performed just t-the right things. killed toriel. killed papyrus. killed undyne…”

Alphys was in disbelief. Mouth open. Eyes wide.

“it went to voicemail… so we had some time. but now we’re done for. now frisk is done with us.”

“What… what do we do? How do we stop it?!”

“we can’t.”

The air didn’t feel so warm anymore.

Sans tore more useless bits off his machine. He only needed to activate a few functions now. It didn’t matter what he broke. Soon enough, very little would matter.

“from what i’m reading… seeing… frisk wasn’t always bad. isn’t always bad. so often, they might even be the… savior of the underground.”

“Are you k-kidding?!”

“the frisk we met might be different than the others. so… if, hypothetically, using a machine with similar capability, we exited this timeline…”

“Sans… a-aren’t you talking about Determination? That’s how Frisk did it all, right? We can’t use that again. Last time I tried experimenting with that, I… they…”

“that won’t happen to us.” He slid open a door into the glass case, where a single keyboard and monitor sat inside. He stepped in, and beckoned for Alphys to do the same. Desperately, she shook her head.

“Then how do we get there?”

“we ride the power of the reset like a wave, to get to the other timeline with our memories intact. that's what this machine can do.”

“B-But MK… Napstablook… all the monsters here, they'll...”

The wooden part of Papyrus’ house collapsed with the quake underneath them. Alphys was thrown off balance, sinking her claws into one of the tables. Nervously, Sans extended a hand.

“they’ll be gone. erased. they’ll forget themselves and each other. if we don’t save ourselves… everything that happened here, every struggle and sadness was for nothing.”

Shakily, her eyes welling with tears, Alphys grabbed Sans’ hand and took herself into the glass case. Just before he closed it, she burst out, “Wait!”

“what?”

“The p-phone. Please.”

Alphys took the phone from Sans’ coat pocket.

She dialed a number.

…

…

“Nap-sta-blook. Sorry if you called the wrong number, I would remove mine if I could, but…”

“Blooky, i-it’s me.”

“Alphys?”

“I’m the r-reason Metta is gone. I’m the reason everyone is dead. I’m sorry. I’m s-so sorry… for everything that’s about to happen. I-I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait… please… if it’s not a bother… what is going on?”

Alphys hung up the phone.

Sans took the phone and threw it outside.

Alphys shivered.

Sans closed the door.

The inside was nice and cool. It felt calm. There was no noise and no vibrations. Outside, everything looked as if it would disappear.

“When… will we get there?”

“right before frisk fell into the mountain. except… they’ll be good this time. they’ll be a good kid.”

“Undyne… Papyrus…”

“i g-guess they’ll all be… back. like nothing happened.”

Alphys swallowed.

“Why didn’t you ever do this earlier?”

“i did.”

“...What?”

“somebody named gaster made it, and it’s pretty much what ended up… well, he’s like the people out there. he was forgotten. erased. reset into nothingness. you and him used to be good together, actually.”

Alphys sat against one wall and slid down into a short sit.

“I don’t remember him.”

“i guess you wouldn’t, anymore.”

The metal around them creaked.

“What do people normally do… when the world’s ending?”

“crack jokes, i guess?”

“Uh… I-I don’t really have any.”

“drugs, or jokes?”

*Alphys chuckled a little.

“you know… i just want to see toriel. after all this and i still haven’t even met her face-to-face.” He held his hands together from the chill.

“I-I want to see Undyne...”

“and papyrus.”

“Asgore, too.” Alphys started to smile at the thought.

“look… if this works… call me, OK? call me on the other side.”

“O-Okay. I won’t forget.”

“i won’t forget, either.”

“...See you.”

Sans and Alphys stared at one another, their weak eyes stained blue, and waited. It got colder and colder, until they couldn’t move their hands or their legs, and the surface of their glass cage was slick as ice. The world ended, and just in the nick of time, their consciousnesses left it.

*Monster Kid yelled into the darkness...

“‘Sis?! Alphys?!”

“Sans?!”

“What’s happening?!”

“Anyone!!”

“H-Help me…”

*But nobody came.

*...

*...

*...

*...

Sans looked around.

Snowdin Forest felt as cold as that glass interior. He spun around lazily, his bones restless. His jacket wasn’t torn up. The trees stood taller than ever. And he saw, right behind him, a tall deep purple door-- the door to the Ruins.

He coughed. A puff of air emerged like smoke from a chimney.

Walked forward and knocked calmly.

“Oh, I thought you had left,” said Toriel on the other side.

Sans took a second to respond. When he did, his voice was cracked and weak. “not yet,”

“Well, uhm… you caught me just as I was going back to the entrance to check for…”

“i know… and, you’ll find somebody this time.”

“What do you mean?”

“and they’ll… they might be good, tori. you’ve gotta trust me when i say… be careful. if it’s someone good, if you can feel it, then take care of them. but if they have… a little red glare in their eyes… i need you to… stop them, alright? screw ‘em up. hurt them.”

“How do you know any of this? I never told you anything about my name! If this is simply another joke…”

“hey, just… act like it is, alright? just a joke. just... forget about it, okay? i know you’ll do fine.”

The voice came again, but Sans edged away from the door. He was shaking, the clat-clatter of his bones barely audible.

Sans reached into his pocket and produced a phone.

He waited.

And waited.

A few really long, painful moments. A few moments with only the chill of the wind. Maybe he’d made it all up. Maybe-- it was his subconscious, punishing him for what had happened before. His left eye glistened blue. It was all gone. Everything he’d gone through, and he was back to being in front of that door, and sixty paces from his brother.

…

(Ring, ring…)

Sans answered the phone nervously.

“S-She’s alive,” sputtered the voice on the other end. “They’re all alive.”

“yeah,” he managed. It was pained. “it… must’ve worked.”

The snow tracks leading back to town were recent. He could see the little bridge in the distance that Papyrus had built, and if he did his best, he could even see his brother’s silhouette, bouncing haphazardly between piles of snow and trees, struggling just to make sense of the world. But it was perfect. It was him. It was… it was…

Sans coughed.

“I thought I imagined everything,” said Alphys. “That it was… that it meant nothing.”

“to that kid, it… didn’t mean anything. it was just another ending, alphys. it was just another line of dialogue over the phone.”

“What do I do? W-What do we do? Are we supposed to… j-just forget about it, then?”

“if we do, is that any different than getting our memory reset?”

Alphys took a breath on the other end, and struggled to hold the phone between her claws, sobbing as hard as she could. If she cried, it was real. If she was talking to Sans, it was still real. If, in the end, at least one other person lived through it, it was real.

“N-No. It’s just as bad.”

“i… guess we’ll be seeing each other pretty soon.”

“Heh… yeah. I’ve got a camera i-in the bush over there, by the way, so that phrase doesn’t really, uh… work, both ways...” She sniffled.

“aw, you’re such a creep.” He managed a tiny chuckle. Sans hadn’t laughed in a year. He had spent so long silent, his unending grin wide, a shadow over his shoulder. But, now… it was like the world hadn’t skipped a beat. For the world, and for Alphys… Sans chuckled, and she did, too. “gotta go check on my brother.”

“Thank you for it all,” she managed to say.

Sans had the feeling it was far from over.

Alphys hung up the phone.


	2. True Pacifist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys is lonely.

Alphys stared at the faucet bearing down on the sink.

It’s awful. Incessant. Showing through the veins of the marble. Breathing low and heavy and hard, and thick breathing that isn’t real, and all Alphys can do is stare at the faucet, and back at the mirror, and back at the faucet.

It’s day thirty of knowing, and all Alphys can do is think, it’s worse to know.

It’s so much worse knowing.

She takes another breath and only gets the steam of the hot water faucet in her throat, and coughs it back out again, and takes another look at her eyes in the mirror. Those are really, really young eyes, aren’t they? The kind that haven’t seen what she has. She slips her hands onto the knobs and turns it off, and the bathroom clears quickly of all noise and all worry, and Alphys gets back into the mindset, and back into the groove.

You’re insecure. Good around people you care about.

You have no particularly interesting qualities. You would make a terrible leader.

You don’t care about enough people.

You spend too much time secluded.

You love her.

You hate yourself.

That’s the old Alphys, and now that has to be the new Alphys. Sans says it’s for the best, because if she were to change, if she were to keep all the changes she accumulated over four hundred and twelve days of hell and life as queen, then not only would she be in more pain, but Frisk would know, and so would Frisk’s little friend, the prince, the one that looks like a goat.

They can’t know because it’d be worse if they knew.

It’s worse to know, thought Alphys. It’s so much worse.

Asgore and Toriel had a really, really big house. The kind of thing she always thought would make a good setting for an anime. Eight bedrooms, which was three too many. The couple slept apart from each other, because they were still apart in a lot of ways, and Toriel wanted to spend more time with Sans. Alphys never commented. Alphys never objected. She was with Undyne, and she was so good to her, and…

The point was, it was a big enough house that both humans and monsters could fill the halls 100-strong for the one month celebration of peace.

Alphys slid her hands against her shirt to dry them a little, then against a towel delicately held next to the plaster-white door, harsh as they come, and then put them together, and they reminded her that she was still alive. She wrapped them around the doorknob and it swung open, releasing the cacophony of voices and footsteps on the first floor, shaking the boards underneath, swirling up and above the staircase like a collection of single, garbled notes, all speaking in unison about something Alphys couldn’t make out. She was delusional, at this point. Besides Sans, Frisk and Asriel, everyone was hazy, a blob without dimensions, and a saint because it didn’t know about what was really going on, and about what really happened to her and Sans, and why they always seemed a little off. Although her and Sans only spoke once every day about it, every time she’d ask-- “Did Frisk reset to get Asriel back?” And he’d never have a good answer. He told her, it’s worse to know. It’s better if you don’t know, and if you stop thinking about it. But how could Alphys stop thinking, stop knowing? Any moment now, any second, something would go wrong and somebody would die and Frisk would have to reset to before it happened. There are probably ten resets every day. How many times has Alphys gotten over her fear and her mania, only to be reset back to this moment at the top of the stairs outside the second story bathroom trying to sort through the mess of emotions and terrors that plagued her like a disease? How many times had she died? How many times was it by her own hand?

And she could never ask. Because Frisk knew, and Asriel knew, but they didn’t know she knew, and it was worse to know.

So Alphys was Old Alphys, and she was insecure and broken and afraid to love, but Frisk had cured her of all doubt, and it was only Sans that knew a single thing about resets or time travel.

She was a little tipsy heading down the stairs, more than tipsy, slipping down the well until she reached the bottom amidst a crowd of unfamiliar and familiar faces. There were humans who paid her note, as they all still did, with monsters such an oddity and phenomenon. It used to be that Alphys needed to hold her breath heading into a mob of people, but not as queen, and she didn’t really feel the need now. Too off-balance to care. She took a glance at MK, and then almost started crying a little, but held it in. MK wasn’t angry or sad at all. It would be worse if he did know that Alphys had left him behind in a dying universe, empty of all things, just to save herself and her own memories. Maybe being reset wasn’t so bad. She still didn’t know if it was a wasteland left behind when Frisk reset, or if it was just a world sans Sans and Alphys. Had she left MK behind in the cold?

Her little brother, and she’d done nothing to protect him.

He gave her a glance, grinned immensely wide, and returned to talking to Asriel and Frisk, nearly shouting over the uproar.

They looked happy.

Alphys kept moving through the crowd, a short figure amidst trees, exiting the hallway and coming into the modest living room at the front of the house, now full to the brim, and slipped between people until she reached Toriel, and Toriel was talking to a nice-looking blue monster with bunny ears carrying an ice cream cone.

“Alphys!” exclaimed the boss monster, her eyes lighting up upon seeing her. She welcomed Alphys into the little huddle as best she could, and tired Alphys tried to keep her gaze focused. “I was hoping you’d still be awake. Remember how I said there was something I needed your help with?”

“Something about needing a machine,” she guessed.

“Well, this fellow here--” She pointed at the Nice Cream Man. “He has an idea on how to help keep Mt. Ebott safe from people attempting to loot or do damage. Now, I know you’re not the royal scientist any longer, but…”

Quickly, the words faded out of hearing. All Alphys could stare at was the tall monster in front of her, whose dark brown eyes swirled with ambition and happiness, and she could tell he was happy just to be here. She remembered when she first talked to him, a few hours after the massacre, stuck between two rocks on the edge of a cliff. He was begging for her help, screaming like people do when they have no other hope, and Alphys spent six hours getting him back to safety. He had been tossing dust into the abyss, like many monsters had wished for. Alphys lost count of how many urns she tossed into strange places, and lost track of how many times it felt worse to do so. There was still Nice Cream in the Underground. It didn’t make her happy, but it was a good way to reward herself for keeping the peace. The Nice Cream Man was one of many individual beads that kept Alphys sane, so she just waited until Toriel stopped talking and he started.

“I-I mean, I think it could work, but I’d need some help from a few monsters, especially you and Asgore. To seal off everything, I mean. Toriel said she’d do it, but she’s just too busy.”

“Yes. I am sorry, Alphys, I know you don’t like these sorts of things. But I have a lot going on.”

Alphys stood up a little taller, and her eyes opened wider, and her legs grew uneasy with the mutual feeling of alcohol and frustration. “Why can’t you? I mean, you’ve got time. I mean, you can always use the time you have better, make better use of it, make time.”

“Trust me, with both of the kids, it’s just--” That was what pushed her over.

“Right, because they need your full attention. They can’t handle themselves, the kids who have seen more than anyone else here. Why don’t you get Sans to take care of them sometimes? Just help out with keeping the mountain safe, it’s one little day you won’t get to spend with Frisk and Asriel.”

Toriel lowered her eyebrows. “Alphys, I’m sorry to say, but you’re being very rude right now. You don’t have a clue how stressful it is to be queen.” The Nice Cream Man slowly took a step back as anger welled in Alphys’ eyes.

“I don’t have a clue?! Is that what you’re saying to me, you worthless hermit piece of garbage? You don’t have a clue, Tori, that’s the thing. You don’t have a goddamn clue. I’ve been Queen. I’ve been in the kind of stress you’re dealing with, right now, and worse. I have seen everyone I care about and love-- Toriel, have you EVER had everyone you care about die in front of you?! Could you do anything about it? Are you gonna… And you really can’t make any time to keep the goddamn mountain safe from being ripped to shreds?! You don’t have a goddamn clue what it’s like, and now you’re telling me…

“Now you’re telling me I wasn’t ever queen, like I don’t know what I’m talking about, and that I don’t know you can always make time, and you NEED to make time, and now you’re standing here after a single month, easygoing in your goddamn ugly golden throne, because you haven’t lost anything, because you haven’t lost everything. You've always HAD everything, Tori, and you STILL LEFT, because you're a COWARD! You have your goddamn son alive, by a MIRACLE, and he thinks you’re the best thing on earth, but I know the truth, that you don’t deserve any of this. Have you been what I’ve been through?! Have you seen them all die in front of you, Toriel?! Have you--”

She felt herself whisked away, half-dead on her feet and her eyes full of tears and uncontrollable, unending anger, the kind she’d built up for so long she didn’t even know how to get it out any more. A bony hand clasped around hers, pulling her away. “alphys, you really are drunk out of your mind! tori, i’m so sorry, she’s nearly fainted. m-must’ve been something in the drinks, haha! it’s really fine, come on, we’re going to go upstairs.”

Toriel didn’t know what to say. The same stricken, horrified expression remained on her face for a while afterward, and no amount of noise made Alphys’ words fade from her ears.

Heavy breathing. Shaking. Tapping against her hip gently with her forefinger, and staring at the ceiling with Sans next to her. She sat and she laid in bed, one empty bedroom with a solitary collection of sheets and mattress on one wall, because it was the most silent, isolated part of the house, and Alphys needed a little more isolation than she first thought.

“you need to be the old alphys,” said Sans nonchalantly. “we get to talk about it, and nobody else. ‘cause nobody else was there, and it’s worse to know, for them. even when tori’s… even when stuff like that happens, we need to be our old selves, for their sake.”

“She deserves to know,” she muttered. “Not thankful for a thing she’s been given. She deserves to know what it’s like to have nothing.”

“i guess you didn’t have nothing. you had MK.”

“And… a-and now I’m the same awful sister I always was. Old Alphys.”

“so? you can build that again. it’ll be hard, but you have time.”

“That’s not how it works, Sans! Relationships don’t… I-I mean, you can’t go like that, taking a step back, knowing their quirks and who they are. I bet Frisk thinks that’s how it works, b-but it’s not right. It wouldn’t be right to start it all again, after losing it.”

“so what, then? you try to make friends, just by forgetting all you’ve already learned? remember what we agreed. forgetting is just as bad as being reset. knowing is--”

“It’s worse to know,” said Alphys.

“...yeah. it is.”

There was a short pause.

“i’ve heard it compared a lot to german sausages.”

Alphys looked back at him, puzzled. “What?”

“...because it’s the wurst.” She loosened her gaze quickly and chuckled a little, lying further back in the bed with her eyes gone wild and her fingers tapping endlessly.

“They’re the worst because you can’t cut through them normally,” said Alphys, her voice picking up in loudness. “You have to saw-sauge through.” Sans’ grin widened like it always did.

“hey, you made that one a few months ago.” She searched for a pun a little while in what he had just said. There wasn’t one. She rocked back and forth on the bed for a while, trying to come up with something else, when a figure came in the doorway, just as short as Alphys and Sans, who quickly conjured up a few words to announce his presence.

“A-Are you two making puns in here? All by yourselves?” asked Asriel, clinging to the frame, with a dumb grin on his face. “I heard yelling downstairs. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” said Alphys. “And we were definitely making puns. Really, terrible awful ones. We wouldn’t want to expose them to anyone, right, Sans?”

He laughed. “you wouldn’t believe it, but this kid is even worse than me and you combined.”

Asriel’s grin turned to a smirk as he swung around the door into the room, and he said under his breath, “I’m Asriel as it gets.”

“Hey, Asriel as it gets, I’m Alphys.”

This went on for about an hour.

The prince laughed, and Alphys laughed harder and harder, loosening out and letting everything else stop mattering until he was curled up on the bed beside her, with Sans peering over, chuckling alongside and delivering the shortest, sneakiest jokes. Then they’d pause, all three of them, for minutes at a time, only to return with the cleverest wordplay they could possibly manage, a flurry of phrases and puns faster than any of them could comprehend all amidst howling, unending laughter, filling the room from floor to ceiling. Then Alphys’ chuckles died down, and Asriel realized how long he’d spent upstairs, and said faintly that he should really be going down to be with Frisk, now.

And then, simply as he came, Asriel simply left.

Then, another pause.

“I can’t believe I let that happen,” said Alphys.

“yeah. you were pretty morbid before that whole thing. maybe you’re not as good at the morbid game as you think you are, huh?” said Sans, hoping for a laugh, but there wasn’t one.

“He’s such a good kid,” she muttered. “Such a good kid. Didn’t deserve any of it. Deserves to be here, and alive… more than anyone.”

“yeah.”

“How many times did Frisk reset to get him back?”

No reply.

“If… if any. I wouldn’t be a good judge. But you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“it’s better if you don’t know the answer. maybe they didn’t. maybe they did. can we get back to the puns, al? i like it better when you’re making jokes.”

“When Frisk got out of the Ruins, they came over to one of my cameras, tapped on it, then grinned and said the words, ‘Hey, Alphys!’”

No reply.

“Then they moved on. Walking as slow as they wanted, taking it all in. And you two talked like you had known each other for a hundred years.” She frowned, her eyes staring into what felt like Sans’ soul.

No reply.

“The best of friends trekking through Snowdin Forest together, doing things I couldn’t see, trying to keep everyone from knowing how close they were.”

No reply.

“Then, when everything was over, you finally started talking to me. You were scared at every moment before, and then you were honest again. Like a burden had come off your shoulders. And Asriel was alive, and Frisk didn’t explain exactly how,” said Alphys.

No reply.

“But you knew. A-And you helped.”

There was a short pause.

“i forgot you had cameras, honestly,” said Sans.

“How many times did they reset?”

“hundreds. probably thousands, actually.” Alphys’ expression faded from grim to worse.

“You didn’t want to tell me. E-Every time, you answered my phone call and tried to make me feel OK.”

“yeah. i didn’t remember most resets, but…”

“Thanks,” she said.

“it was for him. nobody else. nothing else. frisk had saved everyone except asriel, so… in their mind, it was justified.”

“He had been through a lot. I guess.”

“it’s worse to know, isn’t it?”

Alphys looked down again, and her eyes slowly welled with the remnants of tears, long-gone, far off, like they’d seen more mounds of dust than they ever should. “D-Do you know how long we spent in the Underground with everyone gone?” She wiped at her face, and drunkenly set her hand on the pillow. “Long enough that I forgot about Undyne. Long enough that I had to g-get over her. And then I just… had you, Sans. I-I know it’s screwed up. But you were somebody I cared about more than… in… I-I mean, Sans, you and Tori are real cute. You’ll admit that eventually. Peas in a pod, you two. J-Just like Tori and Asgore. Just like Asriel and Frisk. Just like… me and Undyne.”

Sans broke off his cool expression, his imposed grin faltering as it struggled to convey, and then he muttered, “pap will want a story to go to bed. got to go, al. might want to go join undyne.”

Then, in a single blink of the eye, Sans was gone.

Alphys knew he was capable of teleporting. He called it a ‘shortcut,’ but that was just a term he used to make sure Papyrus didn’t freak out whenever he went from one place to another instantly. What if he had used that ability back in Snowdin when the world was ending? He could have saved MK. He could have saved anybody in the world, but he chose to go slow and save only Alphys. Alphys who was now Old Alphys. Alphys who was now not queen or royal scientist or anything valuable, just the other half of a collection of memories only her and Sans retained. The other half of an entire species. The other half of an entire universe. The other half of just another ending, the kind of ending Frisk was searching for, the kind of ending Asriel was a part of. The kind of ending where Alphys and Undyne wind up together, and they get to be ‘happy.’

But Alphys didn’t really want to be with Undyne, passed out in bed after the party died down, and the empty bedroom felt the same way the old lab used to when she visited it: cold, empty, and full of shadows that she swore were alive.

The entrance to Mt. Ebott was wide and trampled over and in ruin, the remnants of a mass migration that she had prayed for since the first day she became queen. And she could still remember that day.

Sliding down staircases. Down the riverbed from Hotland. Empty. Darkness. The first day of being queen was the best, because it was her first day and she had no idea what it was like to be queen, and even Alphys found room to be hopeful. If one person could stand up and lead, couldn’t everyone find hope? Down into Waterfall with her steps so certain, the loneliness familiar just like it was two months ago, or three months ago, or four months ago. She went to Gerson’s shop, then down a precarious wet path to the edge of the abyss.

The first day of being queen started here, remembered Alphys. She was standing on the edge. Like so many times before, the abyss was calling, and she wanted to watch it, and she wanted to tip just over the edge close enough to touch its phantom nose. Everyone was dead. Everyone she cared about was gone or missing, and the last person on the planet was struggling to keep her from going off. She was standing on the edge and then she heard screaming, and she stopped herself from falling, and looked around, and found the Nice Cream Man with his hands clutching an urn as he hung upside-down, his right leg caught between two rocks, and he moaned and screamed and begged, and Alphys spent the rest of the day with somebody else, and she cried when it was over, and he muttered happily, “You really made me feel like I was going to make it,” and then, “You could do that for everyone else, y’know. You could be a queen.” And she walked away from the abyss, and asked a few of the still-remaining people that question-- could Alphys be queen? And she was New Alphys. And she told herself,

You’re assertive. Good around people.

You are interesting because you are alive. You have to be a leader.

You have to care about all people, because they’re the only ones left.

You can’t spend any time secluded.

You love him.

You hate yourself.

Then here she was again, in front of the abyss, with her hands balled up in fists, clawing against her scales, and the gentle creaking of the garbage dump went over the rest of her thoughts, rewriting them with emptiness, and for a few minutes she waited to build up the courage to leap.

It’s such a weird feeling, Alphys reckoned, to not know what to feel.

Because there was nothing left. Because her thoughts, at any moment, would be lost in time, reset for the sake of somebody she didn’t even know existed. So many happy endings she had had with Sans, so many with Undyne, and maybe in some of them she got over her fear. But it had been taken away hundreds of times. But it had been taken away thousands of times.

Alphys stared at the darkness in front of her and wondered for a while.

Then, from behind, from a ways back she heard the bloodcurdling, desperate voice of Asriel ring out, yelling “Alphys!” as he ran toward, and behind him was Frisk, with their eyes wide open and terrified, and they were all terrified, but she reckoned that Frisk was just feigning terror. And then the two approached, came close but not too close, and the rocks and trash underneath dug into Alphys’ feet.

Alphys didn’t know what to say, at first. She had gone through this conversation so many times. Frisk would ask, ‘what are you doing?’ and she would say something back. But her words were all anger, and what do you do when all you have is anger? All she had left was anger, and Alphys wasn’t good at it.

“H-How did you know?” she said to the two of them. Asriel panted.

“What?” asked Frisk.

“To come here. D-Did you find my dead body down there and reset? I-I mean, if you did, i-it would have been awhile afterward. I would’ve j-just been missing for days, weeks. T-Then somebody finds a rotting corpse at the bottom, or doesn’t find it at all. M-Maybe you reset years and years of time just because you f-found me dead down there. And n-now you’re coming back to stop me, isn’t that it? Maybe we’ve e-even talked about this before. Maybe I’ve made this s-speech before.”

“F-Frisk knew you met Undyne here,” said Asriel. “So we came here first to find you.”

“No resets,” murmured Frisk, whose voice was shaky and uncertain, and nervous. “How do you know they exist? We never told anyone except--”

“D-Do you really want to know?”

Heartbeat fast.

“Yeah.”

“Is it just s-so you can confront me with it when you turn back time after I throw myself off? I-Is that all you want to know it for? You want to reset a-all the way back to before I knew, is that it?”

“Alphys, I swear, I wouldn’t.”

“So I can, then? I can jump off, right now? I-If I jump off, you’re going to reset. I know that for a fact. Y-You’re going to come back and try to fix me. I bet it’ll even work. And nobody but you is going to remember this conversation.”

Heartbeat faster.

“It doesn’t need to be anything like that,” said Frisk.

Her voice picked up, shaking with all the violence she could muster, and her eyes squinted and she cried a little. “If you r-really want to know what happened to me and Sans, just… j-just tell me my secret pass phrase b-before I can start ranting. It’s--”

Alphys felt a hand clasp around her arm, clutching with force, crying out, “N-No, please,” as Asriel tried desperately to keep her from going. They were the same hands and the same voice of somebody who had been reset, somebody under the same amount of stress and fear, and that was enough to keep her on the trash and the rocks wiping at her eyes to stop from screaming as she turned around to face them both. She pointed at Frisk.

“You’re a demon,” she said, exasperated, and the Underground shook a little.

“W-What happened? Why do you think that, Al?” asked Frisk.

“You… y-you killed everyone. Everyone I cared about, and then tried to erase it, tried to reset. Y-You think I don’t remember?! He got us out but you still… you still…” She couldn’t breathe. Asriel clutched harder, and then stared at Frisk with her.

“That wasn’t me! A different Frisk, maybe, but not me.”

“Same eyes,” she muttered. “Same eyes and same demeanor. Same w-way of thinking. Got to get things just right. R-Reset if they’re not just right.”

“I only… I only did all of it for Az. I went back to try and find a way to save him. You know what he had been through, I was just… it was all I could do.”

Alphys choked a little. She struggled to stand, and leaned up against a piece of metal.

Asriel said, “A-Alphys? I-I don’t think… I-I mean, it’s real bad, all of this. R-Resets are awful. And we should have told everyone what happened, but… Frisk hasn’t reset since a month ago, underground, w-when they were trying to save me. Not a single time. And if… if it’s awful, we’ll just have to try and solve it without any of that time stuff.”

She slid further against the steel sheet and looked down, and the darkness welled up like a sore, and she cried, and then the crying didn’t stop.

“I just want to go home,” she sobbed. “Th-they need me.”

Asriel wrapped his hands around her and cried, too.

Frisk stood back, stared off in the distance. Suddenly it wasn’t so easy to get over the guilt. Suddenly everything wrong that they had done, suddenly all the resets were staring them right in the face. Now they knew it, now they knew what Alphys was and what she had seen, and all Frisk could think was, how couldn’t I have known?

And all Alphys could think was, it’s worse to know.

She dragged herself with them. Asriel didn’t stop holding her, and she didn’t know where she was, going through the Underground with shadows in every corner, and she expected everything to collapse suddenly down, and she expected somebody to walk up to her asking, “What are you going to do about humans that fall down from now on?” What would Alphys have said before?

That time, without thinking, she said, “We’ll burn them alive and take their souls.”

But all she really wanted to burn was Frisk.

Frisk would one day fall down, crying, apologizing. I’m sorry I destroyed your world and killed all your friends. I’m going to reset, but you and Sans can come with me, okay? Just you two. Everything you’ve done will be forgotten. But I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.

Waterfall faded into Hotlands.

You can’t bring back the dead, Alphys already tried it. So everything you did, it’s already done, and the only way to fix your mistakes is to try and cope and apologize. Except Frisk. Frisk can just reset. Nobody will remember what you’ve done, and that’s probably for the better. Because Alphys is just another ending from just another timeline, completely unrelated, and it would have been better if she were just reset and forgot everything, because it’s worse to know.

Welcome to your lab. The power is still barely on since the Core is still working.

Sans is here. They told Sans. He has this look on his face like him and Frisk don’t even need to talk, but they do anyway. You’re from a different timeline? Just another ending, says Sans. One where you killed almost everyone. Oh, that’s awful, says Frisk. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I’m sorry, says Frisk. Sans just keeps his permanent grin, and Asriel sits next to Alphys, and the lights flicker a little, and she doesn’t know what to do at all.

“I haven’t reset since a month ago,” said Frisk.

“You already said that,” said Alphys.

“But you need to hear it. I don’t want to hurt anybody else. Me and Az agreed, we’ll only reset a few seconds back at most, because we don’t like ruining all those timelines. We’ll solve problems without going back. We’ll try making the time change localized, but we don’t know if that’s possible, because we haven’t tried. Because we don’t want to try. Because it’s awful, and I never realized how awful until now.”

“What’s awful is… I don’t love Undyne as much any more,” said Alphys. “I-I know I’m supposed to. I was crushing on her, over a year ago. But then Sans… And by the time I had the courage to tell him, t-the world ended and started again.”

“I k-know what it’s like to not love w-what you’re supposed to,” murmured Asriel, clutching her hand. “Supposed to feel good. Everyone knows you are, ‘c-cause you’re finally back. As Flowey, I was supposed to be able to feel good again, because I was alive. B-But… you can’t.”

“Sorry,” said Alphys. “I’m sorry.

“Really, really sorry.

“For making you a flower.”

“Y-Yeah. Can’t regret hard decisions your whole life.”

Alphys spent a long time in the corner of the room huddled up with Asriel, and Frisk and Sans talked, and then they all sat in the same place with silence hanging over them like a raincloud. A long time passed, and then Alphys said,

“I think I want to tell them all.”

Frisk sat up a little. “About what?”

“The other timeline. I want be able to tell MK what I did. It isn’t the same as being back there, but I can’t hide this anymore.” She stood up and reached for a half-dead laptop on a shelf above, dusting it off and setting it on her lap as she laid back down.

“and not what frisk’s capable of? the resets… all of that, you’re keeping secret?”

“They don’t need to know. You trust Frisk, and I trust you, so… I-I mean, that’s the best you can do. They don’t need to trust Frisk if they don’t know. It’s worse if they know. You’ve gotta promise me, Frisk, you’ve got to convince me.”

“We talked it over,” began Frisk.

“And w-we’ll let you and Sans know if it happens.” said Asriel. “There’s a lot of better ways to solve problems than time travel.”

Alphys looked at them, nervous as ever, but eventually nodded slowly and turned back.

She clattered at the old keyboard.

(Hello. This is Alphys.)

(I am New Alphys. I am an Alphys that is a year older than everyone thinks. I am the Alphys that has been acting a little strange recently, and the one who sneaks phone calls with Sans sometimes, and I really can’t hide what’s going on anymore. I think everyone deserves to know.)

“S-So you’re not going to… hurt yourself?” asked Asriel. He was genuine about it, too.

“I g-guess not,” said Alphys. “Not if I’ve goat you and Sans.” She laughed a little, and managed a smile, and so did he, and his was the widest there ever was.

(It’s terrible, all of what happened. But me and him tried to make the best of it. We tried to keep people’s hopes up, and… we might have even succeeded.)

“we’ll work something out. even if you and i… even if that doesn’t work out right now, there’s a lot of time. maybe you and undyne will be better off if you’re on equal ground.”

“I’ll stick around to find out,” said Alphys.

(When the world ended, when it was reset, Sans saved me. We entered a machine that saved us from the loop, and we ended up here, where he knew Frisk would be.)

“Was that machine made by… who I think it was?” asked Frisk.

Sans just nodded.

(I’m coming back home soon. I’m sorry to MK, for not being a better friend in this timeline. I should have been a good sister since you were first born, but I wasn’t. We should watch anime together sometime.)

(I’m sorry to Undyne. I don’t know how to go back to how things were supposed to be.)

“T-Things aren’t supposed to be anything, any more,” said Asriel. “They’re just… as they are. Things can happen how they want to, now.”

“I hope that’s true,” murmured Alphys.

The four of them settled into the corner of the room, clutching each other tight, and Frisk threw blankets over the lot. They would spend the night. All four of them had so many memories in the lab, had visited it so many times for solace, hundreds of times, thousands of times. It was probably the coziest place they would ever have, and for the first time that night, Alphys was alright with dozing off.

(That’s all. Everyone from the Underground is going to get this message, because everyone deserves to know.)

(It’s better to know,) wrote Alphys, knowing it was a lie.

When she woke up, the whole world had changed.


	3. RESET

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys and Sans have been ruling the Underground for a long time, now. Eight years. And soon, we'll finally be free...

Alphys was short, but she had come to seem very tall.

The dimness lent itself to a lot of short nights at first, and then the silence and the ambient, unnoticed cavelight lent itself to a lot of long nights. She sat restlessly, eyes half open, biting her lip and watching the other end of her office as it danced, her delusions getting the better of her, silently wrapping up and around the wood and half-on lights, as they flickered with dying power from the Core, and as she struggled not to pay attention to any of it. It ate her up. Suddenly she was lying further and further back in the chair, staring at the overhead light and then the ceiling, and shutting her eyes and opening them again. Hours. Days. Months. Years. Then she leaned back forward, laid her hands on the table, and stared at the stack of paper again, and apparitions hopped across its surface like a sickness with no antidote, and then that ate up her eyes, too, and she pulled back, and then hours and days and months and years passed- eight, exactly- and then she was standing, dancing around the room like a kid again trying to catch fairies in the darkness. Teeth, eyes, flashing blue, setting her against one corner as lights flickered and it was an earthquake again, and then Alphys was back in her chair. Tall, short, alone, but not as alone as usual. Swiping her fingers against folders and reading what was inside, again. Make use of your light. Power won’t be on forever. Eventually you’ll have to start memorizing everyone’s wants and needs, their requests, their troubles. Eventually there will be no paper, and eventually there will be no light, and the Barrier will never go down, and you’ll die down here like an animal in a cage.

She said, knowing it was a lie.

No, really, Alphys was the most hopeful person in the Underground, second only to her sworn partner Sans, who she had come to appreciate a lot more over the years, who had kept her sane and kept her company, in exchange for giving Sans at least one friend to joke with. At first their relationship was born out of necessity, because Alphys was alive and Sans was alive, but then it was every day and every hour they needed each other, and at night they saw spirits of the people they loved in their dreams, and none of it was as calming as being around one another. They kept each other hopeful, and Alphys kept the Underground hopeful.

Nobody could deny that she was doing her best. A few would say she was doing a lot better than Asgore, even in his prime. What kept Monsters so well together after the massacre? Some said Alphys, but Alphys said that they were afraid of losing more people. They had a third of the population, and therefore a third of the conflict. At least, that’s what it looked like at face value.

The papers were about memorializing the dead, marking the eighth year after, but they were also partially about a fight that broke out between a few Monsters over an insult. One knocked the other down a cliff, and though Monsters are built of magic, they still feel pain, and he certainly did.

“He told me that Dad’s a moron,” said the pusher.

“She pushed me off a cliff,” said the pushed.

Alphys looked at the both of them. Her eyes hung half open, and like always, she took a while to speak again. The dimness of the bulbs. The darkness of the bulbs. Whirr, as the Core gently slid along.

“Monsters don’t turn other Monsters into dust. We don’t hurt each other, that’s not feasible any more, regardless of how justified it might be. Evolutionarily, it’s just not okay. I’ll write up a decision for you both tonight.”

So now she was here, supposed to be writing, supposed to be utilizing the faint light of the office to make her pencil marks count, but something kept her from doing so. There was a hole in her, a pit, eating and sucking everything up until she was sure she’d be erased. It hurt, it didn’t hurt, it stayed and it never went, and she sat in her chair trying to sleep. She could always make time to do more and she could always make up reasons why something didn’t get done. But it always got done, because Alphys was a great queen, and not a single Monster denied that.

Moonlight flooded her den, sliding in from the doorway which creaked open under Sans’ hand, enveloping her tired figure into another shadow against the wall. She saw the throne room outside her built little office, always in disarray, and the even shorter Monster in the doorway, grinning halfheartedly.

“could always install a desk in front of the throne,” said Sans.

“I like to keep it silent out there.”

“well, it seems like this room drives you crazy, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” said Alphys.

They had had that conversation a few times before.

He listed inside, leaving the rough-hewn wood door swung open, and flipped through the stack of folders and papers that Alphys was staring at with his bony finger, just as she had done, and then took one from the top to open it.

“You must’ve heard. Grillby’s daughter pushed somebody off a cliff in Waterfall. I know… don’t ask why she was there.”

“not using names?”

“I’m… kinda having trouble thinking about it.”

“what did you tell her?”

“That Monsters don’t hurt other Monsters. Wasn’t that complicated.”

“so you didn’t accuse her. didn’t tell her she did anything wrong, directly, right? wording is like the length of a pike- it makes awl the difference.”

Alphys chuckled, and grinned wide. Slowly her grins had stopped being momentary, and started being something she was happy to still have. She also started to understand puns involving polearms, due to her position. “Keep it about everyone, not one person. Being hostile makes me an enemy.

“I can’t be their enemy.

“I need to be their friend.”

“asgore’s four sentences,” said Sans. “how to be a king or queen in four sentences.”

“Now I’m stuck not knowing what to do with the two of them,” said Alphys. “The one who got pushed was, uh… pretty much asking for it. But it still could have ended badly.”

“could pull the ol’, ‘stay fifteen feet from each other, but not more than thirty’ rule.”

“Could. Think they’d just hate each other more, though.”

“lame,” said Sans. “trust falls and shared meals?”

“I have a feeling Burgerpants doesn’t want to catch on fire,”

“hey, y’know, when the crowd loves me, they say i’m on fire. can’t be that bad, right?” Alphys giggled again. “c’mon, let’s get out into the garden. it’s stuffy in here.”

"Yeah, but it’s the stuffy of miracles,” she said, and followed behind the smirking Sans as they exited into the endless cavern of the throne room, lit with the blue glow from the holes in the ceiling extending to the surface, reflecting like a room of mirrors, unending in its height and unending in its history. She had come to like this place. Silent, peaceful, so dedicated to its beauty, remaining in its deep golden color during the day, with only the scent of flowers and the scent of the sky above in the air, and only the appearance of a good queen, not of a good Alphys.

“al… i’ve been feeling uneasy all day. something’s wrong. don’t you feel that?”

She mulled over it for a second, and bit her lip. “Like another Human just got here. But it’s worse. It’s pounding, it’s like it’s devouring me. I-I’m trying not to seem worried.”

“we should go to the ruins and check. if it’s another one, you know what to do, right? what to say.”

“I’ve been rehearsing it since Frisk left.

“I rehearse it every time one of them falls down, and it never matters.”

“well, let’s hope it matters now.”

Alphys nodded. “Get a canister. Can you give us a shortcut?”

“yeah. wouldn’t want us to get there late,” he said, words echoing against the massive rocks that covered every surface, and sauntered to the other side of the massive room to take a wide metal and glass tube with an unsecured top, holding it in two hands. He did very little heavy lifting, but this was an exception, because Alphys could only carry so much at once.

She wrapped her claws around it, unwieldy and weighted strange, but it was hers, and she’d probably need it. A trident, rough and gray, heavy, laid against the golden throne glinting gently in the moonlight. It wasn’t magic like all other weapons in the Underground. It wouldn’t attack one’s soul, it attacked their physical form, with the kind of force and power that a human would have once wielded in the Great War. It could not be dodged. It could not be resisted. It was a human’s weapon for fighting humans, and it had been forged in the heat of the Core like a forbidden fruit.

The ninth human had been like all humans before it: young, curious, and clumsy or reckless or miserable enough to fall down the hole at the top of the mountain. She was slow, the slowest by far, spending time in the Ruins with the rare, lonely inhabitants, making plenty of friends. She made her way to Snowdin, which was thoroughly abandoned until Grillby and Sans found her and brought her to Napstablook’s house, where there was a party in celebration, because the Monsters had still not learned their lesson after Frisk. She went from Waterfall to Hotland, and from Hotland to the weak Core, and from there she came all the way to the throne room. Then, curious, she asked Alphys if she could leave. Alphys was a good queen. She wouldn’t let down her people. She said what she had rehearsed, matter-of-factly and simply, not wanting to confuse her the way Asgore used to confuse the children before.

“You have two options, and only two, because we won’t accept any other. You may stay here for as long as you live, and we’ll take care of you, everyone will, and when you die of old age we will take your soul.”

“I have friends and family! I-I’m going to be a singer. This was fun, and you’re all nice, but I’d just like to leave.”

“Can’t leave without a Monster’s soul,” said Alphys. “The other option is dying right here.”

Sans watched from behind her, as the wrought iron trident glimmered in the daylight.

“I’ve heard stories. Monsters can’t kill humans, i-if the human doesn’t want to die. We’ll work something out, and I can just leave, okay?”

“If you leave, you’ll tell them never to send anyone down here. We need seven souls again if we want to leave. I’m only giving you the facts… if you never return, the mystery stays, and people keep falling down.”

The human clutched her plastic cutlass tighter, and now her voice was filled with a familiar rage. “I want to go home. Don’t make me do anything bad. You’re nice people.” MK watched from a forming crowd in the entrance, trembling with the rest of them, ready to scream and fight to defend his sister.

“I see,” said Alphys, and she nodded slowly, sadly. She reached her short arm behind her, taking all the time in the world, hoping she’d be struck down in the next few moments, but no pain came. Her claws wrapped again around the metal trident, weighted to her advantage, her right size, her weapon. “I-I don’t want to have to do this. Please. We’ll be really, really good friends. We’ll never do you any harm. And if you ever need to call people outside, I bet I could r--”

The human lunged forward, expecting to effortlessly dodge the weak scientist’s magic.

Alphys thrusted the polearm without meaning to.

Red.

Screams.

“We can take care of you,” said Alphys.

The human stumbled forward, trying to attack, but she sidestepped narrowly like Sans had taught her to do thousands of times before.

Alphys attacked again. The wrought iron surged forward and pierced the girl like a bullet.

“You don’t need to fight.”

Determined.

Keep fighting.

Get home.

Alphys killed the human, and fell backwards, her eyes welling with tears that knew no name, and then the crowd erupted into shouts. Sans lurched forward with the glass and metal canister, pushing the recently-detached soul inside, and locking it shut with a massive surge of pressure, his left eye shimmering blue, before he ran to Alphys, and wrapped his hands around her, and cried just as hard.

Alphys was a Monster, but she had come to seem a lot like a human.

That day and that night was the first time Sans and Alphys knew they needed each other, beyond anything reasonable, beyond what felt right or what was ‘supposed to be’. That was the first night of many that they slept in the same bed, cried over the same things and felt the same instincts.

The ninth human died two years after Frisk arrived, and there were three more after her, and now it had been eight years of Alphys and Sans ruling the underground, and they couldn’t have been more hopeful people.

She held the trident in two delicate hands, and stood next to Sans. The both of them prepared to go to the Ruins in only a few steps, when a voice came from behind-- gentle, high pitched, and yet it was the voice of somebody who had not spoken in seven years, and was terrified to do so.

“This isn’t a dead timeline any more,” said the voice nervously, and when the two of them turned around to face it, they saw nothing in the sea of flowers that was the garden.

“who was that?”

“Are you hiding? It’s alright. We aren’t going to hurt you. This trident’s not here to hurt you, it’s for the human.”

Then the voice came again, “You can’t do that! You need them.”

“if you stop hiding, we can talk about this. how would you know that it isn’t a dead timeline?”

Alphys and Sans walked among the rows of buttercups, shoulder to shoulder, careful not to trample anything like they always were, with their steps light as a feather and silent as wind. They had always been small, but now they were scrawny, too, and nobody in the Underground seemed to mind having Alphys, who was the polar opposite of Asgore in looks. They had all seen her slay a human. Only a human slays a human the way she did. They called it ‘a taste of their own medicine’. It didn’t help. Sans waved his glowing eye across the ground, surveying, searching for a figure trying to evade his gaze, but nothing turned up, and even though they spent five minutes in the throne room with heavy weapons in their arms no more voice came and they eventually gave up, and with a nod, slipped to the entrance again, prepared to make their shortcut.

“The reset already happened,” said Alphys. “Nothing can fix that. It’s pretty much a law of nature, at this point.”

“so what was it? a prank? it’s pretty far from being funny.”

She turned back toward the garden for a split second, and then back. “I feel like I’ve heard that voice before.”

“you probably have, al, you’ve heard all the voices in the underground by now.”

“Y-Yeah,” and Alphys stepped into the Ruins.

It was hollow and claustrophobic, and echoes of voices that had been there years ago still remained, hanging around like a queen that refused to die. The moment Alphys and Sans entered they felt a presence almost next to them, and with guided footsteps went from hallway to hallway toward the hole where all others had fallen.

“could make her take burgerpants’ job for a day,” said Sans.

“She’d just trash the place. How can you keep your mind on that, considering where we’re going?”

“ah, you know me, al. i tend to deal with stuff by dealing with something else.”

She chuckled. “Positive net result, right?”

“that’s my secret.”

The stone resonated with their light footsteps, and the gentle movement ahead, and all was still like nothing was wrong, and then the two of them entered the tall, endlessly tall chamber, where so many had arrived, and now another had arrived, sitting peacefully in the flowers, their legs crossed and their face showing a clear confusion.

“Frisk,” Alphys breathlessly mouthed, and sprinted forward to split them in half.

“wait,” said Sans with his eye erupting into a gentle blue flame, as he reached one hand up, sending the human against a wall. They screamed out in pain, flailing as best they could against the magic, but Frisk had no knowledge of magic and no idea how to stop it. “wait, al!”

Alphys readied the iron polearm with her claws gripping tighter than ever before. You killed her. You killed them all. I’ve moved on, but I haven’t forgotten, you horrible, deranged human.

“you can’t do that! we need them,” said Sans, reciting the same words that were in his mind only moments ago.

Where had she heard that voice before?

‘I thought Frisk was somebody else,’ it had said. ‘My friend from a long time ago. If I knew they were so horrible, I would have stopped us ever getting into this dead timeline. Sorry, Alphys,’ it had said. A little monster resembling a flower, with the worst look in its eyes, and those words were the last ones it had said for seven years.

She slowed her run toward the weak and struggling Frisk.

“Why are you back?!” yelled Alphys. Sans loosened his grip.

“P-Please don’t h-hurt me,” Frisk choked out.

“Frisk, j-just tell me. Is it ‘cause you want to say you’re sorry?”

“Sorry… s-sorry for what? D-Did I do something wrong?”

Alphys didn’t know how to respond.

“you’re serious, aren’t you? you don’t know.”

The human coughed. “I j-just fell down here a little while ago,” they said. “Something made me w-want to.”

“Maybe… you don’t remember. But you’ve been down here before,” said Alphys.

“I have,” they managed. “I don’t remember why, b-but this place is familiar. I’ve been here a lot.”

Sans edged closer. His low, calm figure and his low, calm grin betrayed his eyes, filled with intensity and readiness. Slowly, with the care of a surgeon, he lowered Frisk to the ground, keeping his hand up as he released the magic hold, ready to bring it up again. Either way, if Alphys wanted to, she was close enough to kill on instinct. So the two of them stood around the lying child, breathing heavy, with their hands on the ground to keep from falling over.

“Why do you know me? What did I do down here that was s-so bad?”

“So many things,” Alphys murmured.

“i think this conversation might go better over tea,” said Sans, staying nonchalant, with his hand ready as ever.

The human stood slowly, using the rocky backing of the winding chamber to keep their balance. A flash of memories went through their mind’s eye, and they stared at Alphys and Sans, both primed and ready to attack with their lives, and so many other lives, on the line. Frisk got the feeling that they had done this so many times that they were no longer capable of making mistakes.

Another shortcut, from the Ruins to the throne room, and Sans nervously got a set of wooden, antique furniture- three chairs and a table- to set in the center of the garden. The human simply stood, waving their head around the golden chamber, awestruck and no less confused. Alphys kept at the ready with her trident as the table was set up near effortlessly, its iron weight transferring to her shoulders, which already grew tired out of fear. A certain energy radiated off of Frisk, an energy she hadn’t felt for seven years, an energy that was lively yet could end lives, like a dancing, happy array of gunfire, clattering in her ears, like a heartbeat that grew faster and faster as it absorbed the souls of everyone around it.

“sit where you want,” said Sans to Frisk. They did, wrapping around the sturdy chair carefully, and watching as the two of them poured tea in perfect sync.

If Asgore was good at anything, it was his skill to calm people with only tea.

“I think I came here to help you,” said Frisk. “Or Alphys’ little brother. Or more people-- I forget. I’m still having trouble remembering. What did I do? Just… tell me the whole thing.” They gulped down half of their cup.

“You came here and killed tens of thousands of our friends and family, and then tried to erase it using your RESET.”

Sans took a sip of his tea.

“If that’s so, then why is everything still here? If that was so, I should have gone back a long time ago, right?”

“on the surface, maybe that’s what it looks like. but everyone knows by now that we’re in a dead timeline.”

“...What does that mean?”

Alphys continued for Sans. “You can’t destroy universes. When you reset, of course everything is brought back to its normal place, in a new timeline. But the old one doesn’t go away. Everybody will experience their memories leaving, and the human who resets will always make it to the other side.

“despite this, the old timeline still exists. it remains in addition to the new one, with all the people still alive, and one version of the human stays trapped forever, having lost their ability to reset. it’s a dead timeline because it’s not supposed to exist. nothing comes in, and nothing comes out. capisce?”

“I can still feel the power in me,” said Frisk. “It hasn’t left. I don’t need to use it, a-and something’s telling me I don’t ever want to use it. But I still have that ability.”

The table went mostly silent, aside from Sans’ calm sipping at his ceramic cup.

“Everything’s so familiar, yet it’s all new to me. Maybe I came from somewhere else to this timeline.”

“No,” said Alphys. “Nobody knows about us. Even if that was possible, there’s…” She trailed off, and at the same time, her and Sans realized the same thing.

The earthquake.

“look, if this works… call me, ok? call me on the other side.”

“O-Okay. I won’t forget.”

“i won’t forget, either.”

“...See you.”

Sans and Alphys stared at each other, their weak eyes stained blue. Snowdin shook and collapsed, ravaged by the force of the mountain shivering, for minutes and minutes. Wood collapse, concrete fell, and the rotten-wooden town descended into a pile of debris.

But they did not leave in the machine. A half hour passed, staring at each other in frozen silence, but nothing ever came, and they never went anywhere.

At first, Alphys was so angry at him. He had lied, his machine hadn’t worked, and now they were stuck in some sort of limbo. He didn’t know what to say. Gaster’s device-- it was supposed to preserve them! It was supposed to keep their memories safe from any harm, transferred effortlessly wherever they might go.

It took months and months, and experimentation, and then he realized it HAD worked. He had done everything right. Time just didn’t work the way he thought it did.

Sans and Alphys would be protected from losing their memories. In fact, he was sure that one version had successfully made it to another timeline, to pursue another ending, to find happiness with all the people they had lost.

It turns out that the two of them still trapped in the Underground were an unfortunate byproduct of an irreversible law of nature, and that Sans had rolled the dice, and that he had lost.

Within a week, everyone in the Underground knew, and for some reason, it gave them hope. Nothing could be reset. Nothing could be destroyed. They were living on their own now, even if they were missing nearly everyone they cared about. With seven souls, Alphys could take them to the surface, like they had fantasized Asgore would do one day.

“Sans and Alphys,” said Alphys. “The other ones. They made it, and now their Frisk must’ve come here to help us… somehow. Maybe they didn’t even know we existed, but my brother… maybe that’s why they sent you here.”

“you really think those lucky alternate versions of us would care enough? time is dangerous. going to someplace that isn’t supposed to exist is, in my experience, an all-around bad time.”

“Well. It did some damage to Frisk,” she said back, peering at the human, who was still watching their conversation with intent. “Lost some memories. You would have been too careful to let that happen, Sans, so maybe Frisk did it… on their own? Did you reset their happy ending, too?”

“N-No,” said Frisk. “It’s still hazy, but I know I didn’t do that.”

“then maybe the memories will come eventually,” said Sans, drinking the last of his tea. In what seemed like an instant, tea from the pot went into his cup without him having done a thing. “al, i don’t know if we need to be in a hurry this time. so long as frisk doesn’t… do anything,” he murmured, staring at the human, “then we should have time to get their memory back.”

“Them being here,” she started, “is enough to scare me. It’s enough to get the whole Underground to descend into chaos.”

“so we hide them. our house would work, right? MK can keep a secret.”

The wavering, fluttering movement of the garden faltered for a moment, as if somewhere under the golden layer of flowers, there was something moving. Then Alphys recalled the few words that her and Sans had heard earlier, weak and unfamiliar.

“Frisk… it’s probably nothing. But... do you know anything about a... talking flower?”

The human sat up a bit. “Oh, you mean Flowey? That’s what Asriel used to be.”

Sans dropped the tea cup, emitting a loud clattering and clinking against the wooden table as the thin elixir inside seeped through the cracks in the boards. The china swung and spun into place, and the skeleton’s eyes seemed to swirl while staying still, suddenly engulfed into surprise. His left eye came back into its ambient, blue heat, lighting the table in addition to the faint moonlight.

Shakily, he murmured, “you mean asgore, right? heh, kid, i don’t think that the king was ever--”

“No, I mean Asriel,” said Frisk. “Me and him are really good friends after everything that happened. Uhm-- am I not supposed to remember that? It feels like something everyone knows now.”

Alphys started, “I made him into…”

“And I’m pretty sure he forgives you! A-Are… wow, this timeline really is pretty messed up, huh?”

The table was silent for a little while again. Frisk commented on the quality of the tea, saying it was just like Asgore used to make. The holes in their memory were vague and vast, and yet the smells of the garden and the sights of Alphys and Sans gradually brought them to fruition.

“This timeline might be messed up, but it’s home,” said Alphys.

“Do you… have a Flowey here?”

“I’m pretty sure he told us not to kill you.”

Sans turned to face her. “so how did you recognize that voice?”

“After the reset failed, and after you figured out how things worked, he came and apologized. I didn’t really make anything of it. Just another Monster believing he was to blame, like everyone did back then. I guess I was wrong.”

“but you made him, right? wouldn’t you have realized who he was? a flower from the king’s garden, disappeared after you put determination into it...”

She leaned against the table, took off her glasses, and started wiping at her eyes slowly. “I was hoping the similarity was just a coincidence. That I hadn’t really made yet another thing in torture. But I guess that was wrong.”

Frisk said, “W-Well, it might have been torture, Alphys, but… I mean, you’re the reason he came back. Without you, he’d still be--”

“Where we are, right now, he still is a flower. Sorry, b-but… this isn’t the perfect timeline you’re from.”

Sans sat back in the chair and waited for his anxious eye to calm down.

“That’s okay,” said Frisk. “I’m not going anywhere. Maybe there will be a way to help him here, too.”

“you’re… really that optimistic, huh?” remarked Sans.

“Lot different than the Frisk we knew,” said Alphys.

“It’s weird,” Frisk began, “how different you two are, too. How long has it been since I… since the other Frisk killed everyone? It took a year ‘til you two got in the machine and left, and I think we spent a month on the surface before I came here. A year and a month, right? That’s how long you’ve been in this timeline?”

Alphys bit her lip. It reminded her of how she used to be. “Eight years,” she said softly.

“sorry, kid. looks like you missed your mark.”

The table fell into quiet again, but larger and longer. It turns out that the tea hadn’t helped much, or at least that it wasn’t going to help any more, so the Queen and her partner-in-crime cleaned it up around Frisk, who sat with the news motionlessly.

They took the wooden table but kept the chair Frisk was sitting in. They were still a little afraid, or at least Sans had been made afraid, and it rubbed off on Alphys.

“Frisk, we ought to move you out of here,” said Alphys. “So that nobody sees.”

“S-Sorry I kept you waiting so long,” they blurted out suddenly. “I meant to come earlier.”

Sans shrugged. “we’re doing pretty well, all things considered.”

Alphys motioned to the seat, and Frisk stood up so she could put it away. “It’s kind of you to come here, and you probably had honest intentions. I think the least we can do is give you a place to rest.”

“and hey, you’ll get a free tour of new new home, right?” Sans and Alphys chuckled together.

MK was a lot different than Frisk remembered him. He was taller, thinner, with his eyes gone from the curious wide-open stare to a calm, easy gaze. He didn’t recoil when he saw the human appear in the door with Alphys and Sans right behind, because even though he recognized who it was, he calmly took a step back and allowed them to come into New New Home.

When the Underground quaked with the destructive force of the RESET, all of the old wooden buildings collapsed. The sturdy yet tiny interior of New Home, gray as snow, was sadly no exception, as it fell to pieces and blocked the only entrance to the Barrier. Alphys and MK had been staying in a shanty in Waterfall, but that had been wrecked, too. So her and Sans got something built near to the throne room, a home, a home they never expected to last very long or be very big, but it ended up being both of those things. They had two bedrooms and a big area for MK to play, which he didn’t use as often as he used to. The construction took a week of frantic movement and building, and all the while Alphys and Sans were arguing, and at the end of it they slept in the same bed, and they could never hate each other again. Then months had passed, and months turned into years. And they called it New New Home, because every time they said its name they laughed, and the two of them were always looking for a reason to laugh. Over time they had expanded the play room three fold, to let dozens of kids of the Underground stay in it together, and they’d added an office, which Alphys spent so much time in, like her lab back in Hotland.

Frisk started, “I’m not the same human who--”

“I know,” said MK, grinning a little. “Everyone knows you’re supposed to exist. Since my sister isn’t killing you, I guess you got here somehow.”

More than playing in the big room, MK liked learning about timelines and physics, and he spent all his time under Sans and Alphys learning as much as he could. The ‘kid’ inside of him left as soon as he saw Undyne die in front of him, and he spent the next eight years sitting in circles, talking about science with the two people he trusted more than anything. Nobody guessed that him and Frisk would get along as soon as they weren’t trying to kill each other.

“This is my room,” said MK lightly, with his childlike expression staying, even if his calm and old demeanor betrayed it. “I guess you’ll be sleeping in here for tonight. There’s a spare mattress in the closet for visitors.”

“Thanks. What are those?” Frisk asked, pointing at a stack of notebooks in the corner of the room.

“Theories and drawings, mostly. Me and my sis are seeing if we can surprise Sans with a teleporter that’s based on electricity instead of magic. But, y’know, that’s just the most recent thing.”

The human looked incredulously at the space where MK’s arms would be, and he erupted into laughter. “Yeah, everyone has the same thought when they see me! I got good at using a pencil with my feet. Al says I’ll grow arms when I’m way older, like she did, but ‘til then…” Frisk grinned. “Yo, I’m not that bad of an artist! I’ll show you!”

So he did, picking up a red notebook and setting it down in front of them both. He flipped it open with his teeth with immense dexterity, and revealed the endless pages of notes and illustrations, ranging from simple to incredibly detailed. So many of the drawings resembled Sans’ blueprints, parts of the machines in the True Lab, the stuff of dreams and nightmares. MK showed it all with the familiarity of somebody who had been studying for years and years, and Frisk watched him talk about it in awe.

“He’s NEVER gonna admit it, but Sans knows how to use magic better than pretty much anyone. So when we show him this, he’s gonna freak out.”

“Is that the only reason you’re building it?”

“Oh, no! No, people will be able to use it to get from Hotland to the Capitol in a flash. I mean, nobody goes to Waterfall or Snowdin any more, but still.”

Frisk grinned warmly and watched as MK flipped through more of the pages, pointing out things of interest. This is the part that keeps you from going places you’re not supposed to, he said. This is the part that makes things unstable. This is the part that makes things stable again.

Then MK stopped for a second, turned to Frisk, and spoke lightly. “Hey, um… what was I like? In the other timeline. The one where everything worked out.”

The human took a second to respond. “Younger, I guess. Alphys… could never stand talking to you. She said later it was ‘cause she couldn’t handle trying to take care of you again. She had spent a year building things up, finally becoming a friend, and then it all got… RESET.”

“Sucks,” he said back. “Nobody should have to get RESET. Sounds like the worst thing imaginable.” He stared right at Frisk as he spoke, and it tore right into their soul.

MK was young, but he had come to seem very old.

Him and Frisk spent a little while longer in that room, and then the human left to search through the rest of the house. Although it looked empty, still Alphys and Sans remained around every corner, ready for something to happen, ready for something awful. By the end of the day, when they ate together in the main room in near-silence, the duo had relaxed.

Frisk was not going to kill anybody, now. Not here.

So, the next day, MK and Frisk talked more, and so did Alphys and Sans, and there was an uneasy peace between the four of them. They talked about the timelines, and every day a few more memories came back, describing a world with no problems and where everyone was saved. For their sakes, Frisk didn’t mention the hundreds and thousands of times they had reset to get Asriel back. It itched like a tick and burned like fire, but it would be worse if they knew. Somehow Frisk knew it would be worse.

Another breakfast. Another dinner. They sat together, and the isolated human seemed just fine with it.

“So, uh, Frisk,” started MK, “you’ve talked about what I was like in the other timeline. What about Sans and Alphys?”

The two of them turned their attention to Frisk, who said, “You both seem a lot happier. A lot less stressed.”

“even though we don’t have any of the people from eight years ago, you think we’re happier?”

“You’re… you have each other. Always have.”

Alphys set down her utensils, and all the memories of the Underground before the earthquake returned to her. The settling in. Knowing that maybe her and Sans really would work out, and that his lame, lazy demeanor hid somebody who she cared about, and who she would follow even if it took her out of home and out of comfort. She remembered how Sans had made her queen before, and he had made her queen again right now. Now Frisk was staring her in the face, and in the distance she saw Frisk tearing them down in droves like animals in cages.

She got up and left the table without breathing.

Old house.

New New Home.

Going to be torn down in an earthquake. Alphys can feel it.

MK stayed out in the big room and kept Frisk there, so Sans went to his and Alphys’ bedroom. When that’s empty, he leaves to the garden, dim under moonlight once again. He found flowers trampled in a clumsy wake, and he followed them out the entrance toward the old remnants of Asgore’s house, and further and further spiraling down until he found her clamoring down one of the sturdy metal halls near the Capitol.

“al,” he whispered. His voice traveled through the hall without any effort.

She turned back, and then turned forward. Her tail trailed behind, longer than it really was. Sans hurried in his pace a little, as he didn’t like to do, until he was nearly behind her. The hall seemed to stretch on forever, windows and pillars aligned in odd shapes and sizes, curling up along the side of the mountain. At this hour there was nobody but the queen and her partner.

“was it something i said?” he joked, and he laughed.

“I just don’t want to be around the human,” she said.

He stepped along faster. “why? it’s not the same frisk who…”

“Last time we got this far… last time things really settled down, and we got into the groove of things, everything got reset, and everything changed. I almost l-lost you, Sans. And now, just as things are making sense, Frisk gets here from another timeline, probably trying to destroy it all over again.”

“it’s not the same.”

Alphys slowed. Sans quickened, and grasped her hand tightly, bone against scale, and she turned to him, starting to say something, but he spoke first. He spoke in the kind of voice she hardly ever heard, the most honest voice he could muster. “we’re not gonna lose each other, al,” he said, with all the fear that had been bubbling up inside for his entire life, let out in a pathetic array of words that took more effort to understand than to say. “not again.”

Her expression worsened a little, squinting, frowning, and she clutched even harder against his hand. It was cold, like Snowdin used to be cold. She imagined she was in a time machine, going to see Undyne and Toriel and Papyrus and Asgore and even his son. Sans must’ve noticed, and he grew closer, the soft warm feeling of his burning eye engulfing the both of them in warmth.

“Um… Keep walking,” she whispered.

“what?”

“Something’s following us.”

“any idea who?”

“Yeah,”

The patter of footsteps from Alphys and Sans didn’t grow or fade as the two whispered incomprehensibly, and the flower underneath the ground with its eyes tired didn’t even notice what they were saying. Just following and following, tunneling underneath the earth, for what felt like hours, until Sans called out behind him,

“flowey?”

Of course, his first instinct was to flee. But he had done that so many times so long ago, and now he didn’t have a lot to lose any more. He went through the options for a while.

“Asriel?” asked Alphys.

Ow. That stung. That name wasn’t supposed to be his name, but even when he started eavesdropping, it felt like it was being screamed into his face, tearing him apart. Now, like it was casual conversation, Alphys was using it to refer to him. To him. To Flowey.

Flowey came out of the earth, cracking open bricks of the golden hall.. He looked like he hadn’t slept in years. He hadn’t.

“do you want to talk?”

Didn’t know how to respond.

Sans inched closer carefully. “you saved frisk’s life, you know. we’d have killed them if you hadn’t told us not to.”

“I wanted to make sure you were both alright,” said Flowey. It was weak. His proud and arrogant and twisted voice had entirely gone, and all that was left was the amalgamation of what he used to be.

“hey, kid. that’s nice of you. thanks for keeping an eyesocket out for us.” He reached out a hand, and although Sans was far away, in an instant it was brushing up against the golden petals of the flower in the ground, and the two of them felt exhaustion the same. Alphys caught up, and then the duo knelt beside Flowey, who was glancing away a little.

Sans was cold, but he had come to seem very warm.

“I used to be able to RESET,” Flowey said. “I didn’t used to worry about people, because if something bad happened to them, I could just… go back and help them. So I didn’t need to be careful, and I stopped caring. About anything. S-So when I realized Frisk had come down again, I… I-I didn’t want to let you kill them. You kn-know, once you get to know someone for twenty timelines in a row, even if they’ve done something awful, you start to get to know them.

But… n-now I think that might have been the wrong choice. That power isn’t good.”

“You could have talked to us earlier, Az,” said Alphys. “Eight years, that’s a lot of time to find a way to help you. Why hide? Why wait so long?”

“I-I’m sorry,” Asriel managed. He was himself again, for a second, for a fleeting second that hurt. “I didn’t feel anything for a really, really long time. Nothing at all except anger, because everyone made me mad. But then you told everyone in the Underground what had happened. Told them that it happens after every reset. A-And… And I’ve reset so many times. I’ve hurt people so many times and I’ve reset them so many times, and in the end, they’re still back there on their own. I c-could feel again. Every single emotion, every single negative thing I could feel, I felt it. I hoped I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone ever again, to be honest.”

“it’s not your fault. you… you don’t need to take the blame for any of it. you didn’t know that was happening-- nobody did, not even frisk. those are other timelines. those are--”

“C-Close enough for a human to visit and check on, a-and apologize for?”

Sans fell silent.

“I want to be able to do that. But there’s no fixing any of what I did, no saying sorry. I just… don’t want you and Alphys to get hurt now, t-that’s the best I can do.”

“The best you can do is try,” said Alphys. “If you can’t RESET, all you have left is the people around you. We… want to help you. I want to help you.”

“Y-You two… hardly even know who I am.” His tiny eyes started tearing up, and he tried not to wail.

“judging by the look on your face, az, you know a lot about us,” said Sans. Flowey descended further into crying, leaning his stem down. “let’s try being friends again. from the top.”

He couldn’t stop crying, from then on, and both Alphys and Sans enveloped him in a hug, and he no longer felt the compulsion to delve into the earth, hiding from everything, waiting and waiting to die like he was meant to.

The first real thing Flowey felt in his life was that of belonging. He was like Alphys and Sans now, just another member of just another ending, and they were like family.

So Alphys and Sans came back to New New Home with a flowerpot, and the quiet house erupted into eagerness as they all met Flowey for the first time. A new friend who had been through a lot, and whose smile was so hard to coax. But he’d had enough years of being the terrible thing he was, and now Frisk and MK greeted him with childlike excitement. That night MK taught the other two how to play his favorite video game in the big room, and by the time morning rolled around, somehow both Flowey’s petals and Frisk’s hands were still clamoring on buttons.

“Hey,” said Frisk, when the two met for the first time. “I’m Frisk.”

“I’m Flowey,” said Flowey, when the two met for the first time.

“You don’t need that name any more. You can just go by Asriel. That’s fine by me, at least.”

He leaned a little back. As a flower, it’s kind of hard to look serious.

Frisk sat there with MK and told their whole story. All of it was nearly there. They remembered getting to the lab with Alphys and Sans and Asriel, sitting on top of one another in a pile and sleeping soundly.

“F-Frisk,” asked the flower, “if you’ve told everyone who they were in the other timeline, uh… what was… what was the real me like?”

“One of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” Frisk said, and grinned. “Just like you.”

“Just like me,” Asriel’s deformed, plantlike soul murmured. “Just not me.”

Flowey wasn’t a monster, but he had come to seem very much like one.

Night turned into day, and day turned into night, and night turned into day. MK treated the two new arrivals like any other monster who came by to spend some time in their house, excitable and oversized kids with a lot of problems, but that made it alright. The three of them were such good friends, it was almost enough to distract Alphys. Night turned into day, and day turned into night, and night turned into day. Working to find a reason to come here. Frisk knew everyone was troubled, that they had lost so much. But after eight years, maybe those wounds healed. Yet Papyrus would never come back, and Asriel was still as deformed as before, and the only way to save him would be to RESET again. And both of them quivered at that thought. It wasn’t a very good thought.

The Underground was desolate, but it was home, and Alphys knew that much. She trailed down the platforms of Hotlands and the long roads of the Capitol, doing anything and finding any excuse to get away from the house, with its terrifying creature that could summon earthquakes and erase memories, sitting in a spare bed like nothing was wrong. Her claws clamored against the cobblestones underneath, towering buildings of gray coming up from the ground, with the occasional set of eyes watching from a glass window. People knew her on the streets, welcomed her, swept open their front doors in excitement. Every day she visited dozens of Monsters, laughing at their jokes and knowing them all the better. The four sentences Asgore had written were all she had that was consistent.

“Keep it about everyone, not one person.”

“Being hostile makes you an enemy.”

“You can’t be their enemy.”

“You need to be their friend.”

So Alphys was New Alphys, all the time, getting newer. She was everyone’s greatest friend, their mediator. The power was going to finally go out in about a year’s time, and the Underground would be plunged into darkness. But it’s okay, she assured them. We’ve made it through worse, she assured them. Walking through town like nothing was wrong, chatting. A few days after Frisk fell for the second time, she got Fuku and Burgerpants to make up and stop fighting, like she always did. Sans said that was a quality that not even Asgore possessed. The King needed tea, but all Alphys needed was sweet words and company, and telling them she was their friend, not their enemy. Even in death, that Boss Monster’s voice was still so loud and booming, like the hum of the Core as it went from strong and loud to weak like a whisper, and soon that would be all it was-- a whisper whose fire had gone out.

Of course, Alphys did not know what to do when the power went out. Although Monsters had magic, they relied on the Core to keep their houses lit, and on the Core to keep their houses heated, and on the Core to keep their food growing. So, just maybe, tens of thousands of Monsters would die like all those years ago. And this made her nervous, worse than anything in the world. Lying was the worst feeling imaginable.

She got home late and lied to Frisk, saying that she was starting to get used to their presence. Then she told MK to be careful, in the dim whispers of the twilight coming through the holes in the stone ceiling, then hugged Flowey, then went to bed alongside Sans and cried, letting out every lie she’d made. And then he would wrap his hands around her, and nearly cry, too, because although it didn’t much look like it, he was even more terrified. Angry. Even for somebody who hardly gets angry, something was bottling up inside Sans.

He wanted to tell Frisk,

“you’ve left behind a lot of timelines, too, haven’t you? you reset so many times to get asriel back. you think we don’t know, but we do. it’s pretty sad, kid. even flowey admitted what he’d done.

“how many happy endings did you put into limbo?

“heh. i bet you don’t even care.”

But Sans never had the courage, nor the confidence.

For week after week, Alphys and Sans were separated until that last hour, with an entire Underground to take care of, wading through the thick of their problems in pleased, calm silence. And when they got home, two kids and one flower were getting along better every day. Like they were meant to. Like they were fated to.

Alphys and Sans had grown extremely wary of fate.

One particular day, after two months of the cycle, Alphys noticed that the Nice Cream Man was missing.

He was an adventurer. He spent so much time lost in his own head, searching for ideas and new places, trying to harvest anything he found for a different purpose, by far the most optimistic and scatterbrained of anyone. Sans hated to admit it, but he reminded him a little of Papyrus, and so whenever he came to their house to announce another big idea, he couldn’t resist making his grin even wider than usual. So Alphys assumed that was what it was-- another adventure, another visit. But as she scoured the town, with the carefulness she had earned over the years, not a single person had seen him leave, not of the thousands in town.

“Thanks to you, Queen, there’s not much danger in the Underground,” said Gerson, whose eyes remained as placid as ever. He had taken to speaking less these days, but people like Alphys kept coming for advice. “Last time, he tried making an echo flower into a sandwich that talks. I’ve told him not to go any further than Waterfall, so the worst he could do is try and trifle with the wildlife again.”

Alphys sat bent backward a little, leaning in the chair, with the gentle movements of Waterfall being the only sound for a little while. She nodded, and sat to think.

Gerson didn’t mind. In his mind, silence was a necessary part of conversation.

“Hey,” she finally said after a few minutes, “I wanted to ask you something.

“If you could RESET, go back to before Frisk fell for the first time… would you? Knowing what we know now?”

“Alphys, I hope you misspoke. When Frisk fell for the first time? Waha. I must have slept through the second!”

She laughed a little. “Sorry. I’m pretty exhausted.” Gerson did not forget what she said, though.

“As long as I’ve been around, I’ve never had the inkling of reason to leave other people behind. So if I were given the decision, I’d turn it down without a second thought.”

“Good. G-Good. Knowing our luck, it probably wouldn’t work for you anyways, right?”

The old turtle produced a toothy smile. “Time travel is bad luck in general, my Queen! We’re the lucky ones, if you ask me. At least we’ve kept our heads. And our Alphys.”

“Yeah,” Alphys said with a smirk. “I guess we have.”

She broke away from his modest shop after a while of talking, and on her way out, with the uneasiness starting to set in, Gerson called, “Oh, Queen! I forgot. The Nice Cream Man said he was going to head up to New New Home and surprise you and Sans with something. Sorry if I’ve spoiled it, wahaha.”

Like before when Sans had reminded her of MK heading into Snowdin, like before when she realized that the machine hadn’t worked and they had been stuck in limbo, Alphys froze with the clattering of her bones nearly audible. She turned back to Gerson for a moment, trying desperately not to contort her grin into terror, and managed to say thanks, and that she should get going soon. And then she ran.

So many things were about to happen.

The world was about to end again.

Alphys hung up the phone.

Her breath was unsteady, rhythmic, rocked by the crashing of waves against rock all around her. She stumbled onto the River Person’s old boat, which she had inherited a few years ago, and conjured a quick bit of magic to send it into speed forward, racing along the water before she even had a chance to think. Everything shook, and she saw faces along the river, but in no time at all she was sprinting from the riverbed of Hotlands into the Grand Elevator, which led to every other place in the Underground, including the throne room. Monsters needed an appointment to see the Queen, but the Nice Cream Man didn’t really care for paperwork. How could Alphys be so clumsy?

Sans was caught very literally red handed. His bony fingers were dipped in a cup of ketchup as he prepared to take another mouthful, keeping watch over the three kids, chatting and exclaiming as they played Mew Mew Kissie Coup: The Revolution. The Nice Cream Man, with his arms clutching a massive metal box full of spikes from the Ruins re-purposed into toys, opened his mouth in an indescribable terror. To see Frisk was one thing, but there they were, happy like a kid again, alongside the most casual Sans he had ever laid eyes on. All at once, everyone in the room realized he was there, and went silent to face him, standing slack jawed in the entrance to New New Home.

The skeleton savored the ketchup on his fingers, and then spoke. He tried to seem calm, but there was a sense of urgency, like there always was.

“i guess you’re going to want an explanation,” he said.

The Monster in the doorway shivered. “S-Sans... Frisk killed thousands of us! A-And… do you not see them right there?! Where’s Alphys?!”

MK nearly stood, but Sans ushered him down. “heh, of course i see them. i’ve got n-eyes cream, after all.” He looked down a little, and his grin faltered. “frisk is--”

But when Sans looked up, the Nice Cream Man had already left.

The gentle facade of post-genocide Underground was crumbling around him. He stumbled and quickened as the golden corridors contorted, and he heard the footsteps of three behind him, calling his name, begging for him to listen. He darted around a corner with terror filling him thoroughly, flowing through his veins of magic, and managed to make it to the ledge near the Capitol as Frisk, MK and Sans’ movement faded into the distance.

The first person the Nice Cream Man saw was Alphys, her clothes and demeanor in complete chaos as she pushed her way through the thin crowd of Monsters at the top of the platform, watching the Capitol’s dim lights grow dimmer.

He ran to her and took her arm tightly, yelling, “They’ve-- Sans went crazy! He’s got…” Then, he whispered, “Frisk. And he’s… a-and nobody’s doing anything about it.”

Alphys looked into his eyes. He’d already seen it. He already knew. The best she could do was calm him down. “Do you r-really think he’d do something like that if he didn’t have a reason?”

“Alphys… Frisk’s gonna try and kill everyone again. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“L-Look… What I’m trying to s-say is, me and… me and Sans have a reason. A good reason, okay? If you’ll just let m-me explain--”

The Nice Cream Man pushed away and shouted at the gathering around him, his scream guttural and loud. “Frisk’s in New New Home! We’ve gotta stop them-- they’re trying to control the Queen’s mind, or something!”

The Monsters of Old, the Monsters before Frisk fell for the first time, they might have stopped to ask questions. They might have been welcoming and curious. But Alphys had taught them, had taught the Monsters of New to be quick and strong-willed, and to treat humans with the sort of caution and paranoia that only Sans truly knew. She had taught them to treat Frisk as a symbol instead of a person, as an enemy without reason. She had made them her friends, because it was not about one, it was about everybody. And in order to save everybody, the Monsters gathered from the steps, running into the golden corridors before the throne room, prepared to use every ounce of their being to strike the human down.

She called after them, trying to explain in a feverish rush of breath, but no Monster could accept that their perfect Queen would work with the enemy if not manipulated, so they ignored her, stomping en masse, footsteps echoing infinitely, rattling her head as she struggled to keep up.

They pushed MK aside, and ignored Flowey, because he looked like any other Monster in the Underground, and then the mob surrounded Frisk, the terrified weak child in the corner of New New Home. Grillby forced his flaming hand against their neck, pinning them to the wall, and the collective, unrelenting magic force of the Monsters nearly choked their life out in an instant, their body constrained and forced against the wall. And yet, like they had done so many times before, Frisk persevered for a little longer.

Hundreds of voices, all screeching at once in a cacophony which filled the throne room. Pounding. “You killed my entire family!”

“I wanna be the one to finish it off!”

“Come back for more, huh? Is that why you’re back?!”

“KILL IT!”

Sans watched in dazed confusion. The heat of the crowd radiated, and his bones felt like they were melting under the chaos. His eyes leaped from one figure to another, until he finally saw Alphys return from the back of the golden throne.

She yelled, “Stop!”

Anywhere else, it wouldn’t have been heard. She was just a Monster in the back of the crowd, shouting weakly, trying to convince them with her voice that had no weight. Until Frisk was dead, Alphys wasn’t the queen.

But although Alphys looked a lot like a Monster, she was clutching a human’s weapon in her right hand-- the strangely weighted, rough-tipped, murderous polearm of steel and of the forbidden tree. It held power, the kind not even her most terrible of machines dared to measure. It turned her whimper into an all-encompassing noise, surrounding every Monster and engulfing every ear, and in a few moments they had all turned to her, and the look in their eyes could not be described.

Alphys looked so tall with her trident by her side.

Alphys looked so human with her trident by her side.

“Stop, all of you,” said Alphys, and they listened.

The Nice Cream Man stepped forward.

“It’s controlling your thoughts,” he said. “Making you think it’s your friend! But--”

“Frisk came here from the lucky timeline to help us.”

“We don’t need help!” called somebody in the crowd, and then another, and then another, repeating the phrase as it went through the lot of them.

“T-The Core is going to fail in eleven months,” Alphys said suddenly. “The crops have been g-getting a disease. Asgore used to know how to cure it, but I don’t, and I’ve been trying, but we’re going to run out of food and electricity before we ever get two more souls.”

Sans lifted himself from the ground slowly, almost having been trampled. Frisk slid to the floor as Grillby released his grip.

“we need frisk, whether anyone here likes it or not.”

In the doorway, far behind all the others in his steady pace, Gerson watched with his hands perched on a wooden stick digging into the floorboards of New New Home. The scene in the big room reminded him a lot of the Great War, when a human wielding a gigantic sword had slashed Asgore’s flimsy trident in half. Only now it was Alphys carrying the sword, and now it was a trident just like a Monster was supposed to have. She stood with her hands on the iron grip, prepared at any movement to strike, and she was nothing like a Monster in that moment.

“You’re scaring your people,” he called to Alphys, who turned to the old turtle, her mind racing as adrenaline pumped through it.

“I know,” she muttered.

Gerson stepped forward and faced the horde of Monsters surrounding Frisk, whose face was visible between their tall and short figures, all alike in their cause. “Unlike any of you, I have met Humans before the Great War, and know a great deal. Humans are very expressive in their emotions, like us. And the most hurtful of humans are also the most hateful and confident. Do you see hate on this child’s face? I see only fear.”

And he was right. Frisk cowered against the wall where they had nearly been trampled, the ambient energy of magic forcing them down with fever and heat unknowable, and their eyes were unfocused in the lack of adrenaline that plagued the weak human.

Again the Nice Cream Man spoke. “Frisk killed everyone they could last time they were here.”

“And if Frisk wanted, they could kill you all again. Only Alphys’ weapon has any real power.” The group’s expressions changed again, back into their state of intensity, but Gerson quickly interrupted. “Wahaha! You’re alive, so things must be OK. And our Queen must have an explanation.”

Alphys slacked the trident in her claws. It hung loosely by her side, and yet against the dim lights of New New Home, it cast a very large shadow.

“Come to the garden, I-I suppose I’ll make you all comfortable.”

Things were less than comfortable, but there was enough tea for everyone. Alphys decided that it was okay to use all of the tea in the Underground if it meant pacifying them. Frisk cowered beside the throne, alongside MK, and Sans stood on the other side, ready to assist as she told the story as quickly as she could. He knew more about the theories-- ways that Frisk could have gotten there. And he was the one who talked about Flowey, who disappeared as soon as he did. Alphys couldn’t take the regret. She sat back, but in her eyes it still felt like she was talking, disappointing everyone with what she’d done.

The two of them reached the end, and in all it only took seven minutes. MK hadn’t spoken a word, preferring to keep his head by his sister’s arm for comfort.

“I think I remember,” Frisk murmured.

Somebody in the back of the crowd asked, ‘what?’

“I think I remember why I came here,” said Frisk, speaking up into the mass of Monsters.

“why, frisk? we all want to know, at this point.”

“There’s… another timeline, where I came from. One where everyone makes it out of Mt. Ebott together. And… Alphys hated it. She hated that she had left you all behind. So when I found out about that, I used a machine from the Lab and… t-tried to come here. I didn’t even know if this place existed, it was only a theory, but… I wanted to bring you all there with your memories intact. I just wanted to save you.”

It hung over them for a little while. A few people sitting in front of the throne asked more questions, for clarification, and Frisk recalled every single detail from the other timeline. The air was thick with words in that hour, and the Queen felt herself burdened. She stopped answering questions, and Sans by her side only made her warmer. As time went on he had gotten up on the chair beside her, with their drooped eyes and frozen demeanor. The two of them left only silhouettes in the fading light of the garden, and their shadows looked one and the same.

“‘Sis,” said MK.

The throne room was empty. Sans groggily unwrapped his arms from around Alphys and sat up in the chair, his eyes darting around. Flowey’s familiar, mournful face sat in the corner, and the two kids were right in front of Sans, waking him and Alphys up.

“‘Sis, I didn’t know you thought it was that boring.”

She chuckled, but her voice was dry. “Tiring, not boring… what happened?”

MK looked to Frisk, and Frisk looked to Asriel.

“We explained it,” said the human. “Then everyone who understood explained it to everyone they knew. Then those Monsters explained it to everyone else. Now… I guess everyone know everything.”

There was a sort of emptiness that wafted through Alphys. She had been drained of everything all at once. The worn cushion backing of the golden throne hosted Sans and her just like it had for all the years since, and yet it felt more crushed and torn than ever before, frayed and uncomfortable, and broken open. The entire garden was basked in darkness, utter darkness, and it felt like only their eyes were visible. “Are you going to start trying to find a way to get us back?”

“Well… yeah. All five of us can start working on it,” said MK. “I figure people are gonna argue, ‘cus some of them don’t want to go back. Even after you told them the Underground wasn’t going to last...”

“I-It’s not a lie,”

“we had to lie about it for a long time, even if it’s true,” said Sans. “we’re out of secrets now, though.”

She looked at him, drowsy.

“Feels weird.”

“feels bad.”

“I once took two pieces of monster candy,” said Frisk. “That’s one of my secrets.”

Sans laughed, hard. He didn’t know why it was so funny, but all five of them in the room calmed him down a lot.

Flowey poked out from between some flowers in the corner. “New New Home is a little messed up after they all ran in there,” he said. “I’ll go clean it up for you all.”

“Yo, Az,” MK started, “Let me help.”

Then Frisk sat up, saying, “It’s my fault they came, anyways. Wait for me!”

Sans and Alphys got down from the chair. She realized it wasn’t emptiness, just absence. There had been a tumor inside of her, a tight knot in her abdomen, holding every single thought in. And now it was gone, and all she could wonder was what would take its place.

“c’mon, al,” said Sans. “let’s get the lights working again while the core’s still on.”

And the Core stayed on for a while afterward.

Alphys was short, but she had come to seem very tall.

The dimness lent itself to a lot of short nights at first, and then the silence and the ambient, unnoticed cavelight lent itself to a lot of long nights. She sat restlessly, eyes half open, biting her lip and watching the other end of her office as it danced, her delusions getting the better of her, silently wrapping up and around the wood and half-on lights, as they flickered with dying power from the Core, and as she struggled not to pay attention to any of it. It ate her up. Suddenly she was lying further and further back in the chair, staring at the overhead light and then the ceiling, and shutting her eyes and opening them again. Hours. Days. Months. Years. Then she leaned back forward, laid her hands on the table, and stared at the stack of paper again, and apparitions hopped across its surface like a sickness with no antidote, and then that ate up her eyes, too, and she pulled back, and then hours and days and months and years passed- eight, exactly- and then she was standing, dancing around the room like a kid again trying to catch fairies in the darkness. Teeth, eyes, flashing blue, setting her against one corner as lights flickered and it was an earthquake again, and then Alphys was back in her chair. Tall, short, alone, but not as alone as usual. Swiping her fingers against folders and reading what was inside, again. Make use of your light. Power won’t be on forever. Eventually you’ll leave.

Not just eventually, Alphys remembered. The reason she was so anxious is because they were leaving today.

She slipped from the grasp of her office for the last time, and bid none of it goodbye. It was just stuff. It had been her stuff for eight years, and tomorrow she wouldn’t ever see it again. But somehow it felt easier not to think about it, stumbling into the garden which had held so many memories and so much sadness, stumbling out of New New Home because it had no room for her any more.

She met Sans for the first time in the throne room. She had just become Royal Scientist, and somehow it felt like he knew so much more than her. Somehow it felt like he had known her for their entire lives. They weren’t enemies or friends, but Sans and Alphys met here with Asgore, and then remembered each other’s faces for a long time.

She met Sans for the last time in the throne room.

“hey,” he said. Couldn’t explain how happy he was to see her.

“I-It’s already time, huh?”

“yeah. so… say goodbye to new new home, if you want.”

She laughed at the name. “It’s just a house.”

Sans turned to it, looming and lazy and wooden, sitting in the corner of the garden. “goodbye, old old home.”

“Bye, Old Old Home.”

They walked down the Final Corridor with their hands clutched together. The windows blared a golden light which engulfed the entire room, leaving the two short shadows cast along the ground and against the wall to their left. There was a quiet that the Underground had never really sensed in this place, and further up ahead, there was a loudness greater than they could imagine. But for now Alphys and Sans were alone, completely alone.

“remember when we used to just sit here and look at the sunset?”

“Yeah,” said Alphys. “Only place in the Underground where you can see it.”

“that should be the first thing we see on the outside,” Sans said.

“Az wants to see it, too. And, g-god, I bet MK does, too. The whole damn Underground deserves to watch the real thing from outside the Barrier. M-Maybe on top of a hill, or in a big skyscraper, o-or something.”

“we won’t be waiting long.”

“Are… are you ready?”

“yeah. i think so.”

“Let’s get out of here. Let’s all get out of here.”

The massive cavern that held the Capitol shook with the force of their claps and cheers as Alphys and Sans entered. Down the massive gray stairs, to the entrance to the city, the entire population of the Underground was gathered, standing atop a massive platform of glass, metal and plastic, filled with electronics, generating a gentle field of energy above them.. The two of them waved modestly. They saw Frisk standing at the top of the steps with a microphone.

“I think that’s everybody,” said Frisk.

Alphys and Sans started heading down the steps, their short figures pit-pattering down the steps and echoing through the chamber. When they reached the bottom, they probed the crowd watching them until they found Flowey and MK, and hopped through the energy barrier to stand inside. It was quieter, but far from silent.

“Was startin’ to think you two wouldn’t make it!” exclaimed MK.

Flowey looked up. “W-We were kind of starting to miss the puns,” it murmured.

“but your aim is getting better, yeah?” The small group erupted into laughter together, and then turned to face the human atop the steps, as everyone had suddenly started doing.

“This is it,” said Frisk. “You’re all going to be free.

“When I activate my RESET, everyone’s consciousness will be… moved. It will feel like nothing has really happened, except you went somewhere else. You will still be yourself, but… you will have an extra month of memories, from the version of you that you’re moving to. Don’t be afraid, okay? Those memories are just as real as these ones. But you’ll have both, and that might be difficult to handle. I don’t know.

“Everyone dead will be alive. Everyone alive will remember. That’s just how it’s going to have to be, I guess. That’s the best we can do, right?

“The best you can do is remember. And I think the most important thing is…” Frisk faltered, and then continued. “I won’t remember. So don’t get mad when I look confused, OK?”

Alphys, Sans, Frisk, Flowey and MK had spent four months trying to find a way to save the people in the Underground. They were all talking about that lucky timeline, one where they could see the sunset and meet all the people they’d lost, one where they could finally be free to do anything. But any way they turned, Sans always looked and said, “it’ll leave behind a dead timeline.” Just like it had seven years ago, every solution would produce just another ending, lost, broken, dark. And another earthquake. And another Queen.

No, thought Frisk. That can’t be how it is.

I have a lot of power in this RESET.

“I have a lot of power in this RESET,” said Frisk to them all, one day. “Using it, I could move everyone in the Underground, and keep their memories using Gaster’s machine.”

“resets leave behind a dead timeline, frisk. you know that.”

“It’s… it’s not just power made for a RESET. It’s my soul. I can use it for something else. It takes half of my soul to move myself, and half of my soul to reset the world. Because only half is used, it leaves behind the remnant… the dead timeline. If I use it all for just one purpose, that’s enough to get rid of the problem entirely.”

“But then you won’t come with us,” said Flowey. “So that can’t work.”

Frisk just grinned. “You’re all going to be free.”

Then, a week later, after crying for so long, the entire Underground was ready. They had readied a larger version of Gaster’s machine, a thin sheet of energy keeping their memories intact. And every single Monster had something to say about Frisk, but Alphys and Sans were the most thankful of all of them.

Alphys and Sans were the most thankful, and the most scared.

This might not work, they thought.

All this time we’ve spent together, and it might be lost right here, right now.

Please don’t lose me, they thought to each other, and they didn’t need to speak.

Sans struggled to make his grin smaller, and Alphys put her lips on his mouth in a gentle kiss. They embraced just as the universe shook with the force of ten thousand souls.

“see you on the other side,” he said, and cried a little.

She brought MK and Flowey close, and all four wrapped their arms on each other. Now they were in unfamiliar territory. Now Flowey could finally be Asriel, and Alphys could finally stop being Queen.

Frisk stood at the top of the stairs and said into the microphone, “Goodbye,” and felt themselves lifted into the air, resonating with power.

Frisk gave that power to them all.

RESET

Alphys read the words on the dim computer monitor, words from the email she’d forgotten to send.

(That’s all. Everyone from the Underground is going to get this message, because everyone deserves to know.)

(It’s better to know.)

She was glad she had held off on sending it. It would be pretty irrelevant, all things considered.

Then, Alphys heard footsteps. Across the room, heading to the entrance to the abandoned part of the lab, was Frisk, trying not to make too much noise and failing. She instantly yelled out, “Frisk, no, don’t!”

“W-What?” The human turned around. They looked so young. Alphys felt so young. Sans’ eyes opened, and he sat up, facing Frisk.

“Don’t go, don’t go to the other timeline,”

“How do… h-how do you know about that?”

Sans’s grin looked dumb and massive. “because it already worked.”

Asriel woke up. Eight years of being Flowey came to him, and he burst into tears, nearly screaming in happiness as Sans and Alphys cuddled and hugged him, and Frisk came over, dumbfounded by it completely. He talked about every memory, and he babbled about how the feelings were coming back-- about love, the kind he had missed feeling so much. And Frisk got the idea pretty quickly, and laid down with them.

Then, Alphys’ phone rang, and she flipped it open, noting how terrible her tastes in anime were in this timeline. MK’s voice erupted from the other end, more excited than it had ever been.

“It worked!” he shouted into the receiver. He sounded like he was having a good time. “Everyone’s going CRAZY! It’s, like, the biggest party I’ve ever seen!”

“Thank God,” said Alphys.

“Nah, screw God. Thank Frisk! I, uh-- oh, wow, I’m a kid again! Now you can call me Monster kid like always, ‘sis!”

She giggled madly. Sans spoke into the phone, “we’re gonna be right there, alright? have fun. try not to freak out tori for me.”

That word. Alphys hadn’t heard that word for a long time.

Toriel. She had meant so much to Sans in this new timeline, and…

“Sans,” she muttered, “is that… are we not…”

His grin didn’t fade, and he faced her, his blue eye calm and cool. “tori’s a good friend of mine. i’ve known her for a little while, but… al, you really think some minor time shenanigans are gonna pull us apart?” She smiled warmly. “that would be pretty underwhelming.”

There was so much to tell Frisk, but Alphys, Sans and Asriel were anxious to get out of the underground, so Alphys just said, “You made a lot of new friends. Let’s go see ‘em, and I’ll explain on the way.”

They went along, visiting every place for the last time, the heat of Hotlands and the sights of Waterfall, and then through the elevator to the Last Corridor, just as cold as they remember it, the sun coming over the horizon outside. All four held hands for fear of being torn away.

Finally, the golden flowers of the throne room.

There was so much to say.

Asriel clung to Frisk like a magnet, the grin on his face unending. Alphys said to him and the human, “You two go on ahead to the Barrier, okay? We’ll just be a minute.”

“We’ll wait for you,” said Asriel.

The two headed on.

Alphys was short, but she had come to seem very tall.

Sans’ eyes darted around the massive room, his hands in his pockets, and his mind racing faster than ever before. “an extra month of memories, huh? this is going to be weird.”

“Y-Yeah. We’ve just gotta do what Frisk said, and not stop being ourselves. Even if it’s hard.”

“want to sit on the throne one last time?”

“Sure.”

They did.

It was more comfortable than usual.

“I think I’m done being Queen,” said Alphys.

“you don’t want to be a leader?”

“O-Oh, I mean, I could moderate an anime forum or something. But… y’know, for right now, I think I need a break from keeping all the Monsters safe.”

“they’ll always look up to you that way.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “They’ll always know.”

“it’s better to know.”

“It’s better to know.”

Alphys and Sans were a little afraid, a little sad and a little lonely. But when they were together, they could handle every bit of it, and they had come to seem completely inseparable.

Stumbling steps. Nervous. Heading toward the exit. The Barrier was down, and it was never down, but Alphys was calm about it anyways.

The light of the sky.

The morning bright.

The sunrise.

Sans said, “well, it’s no sunset,” as Asriel hopped down the rocks, yelling and laughing toward Frisk as he trailed toward the bottom of the mountain.

Alphys cried and rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s good enough.”

And the two were no longer just another ending.


	4. Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans meets a familiar face after losing everything. Alphys rises to power.

Sans’ breathing was very short and light, and the cool air of Snowdin carried it in droves of what looked like smoke. He shooed it away, clasping his right hand against his mouth as he crouched down next to Grillby’s. Long ago the place had been abandoned, and Sans was ashamed of his grin, because he couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t stop smiling for the life of him. Six hours after the worst thing in his life and Sans was still smirking like an idiot, so he put his bony palm over it, air filtered between his fingers, and tried to hide his mouth entirely. His jacket was worn with the force of so many years, and it hardly kept out the cold, but Sans was always cold, all the time, so it didn’t really make any difference. He leaned his back against the wooden walls of the building behind him and watched as the frozen air and flurry of snow picked up and died down over and over, an unending storm, like the wind and weather and cave themselves all knew that Undyne, the King and Queen, the Royal Guard, most of the cities, and even his brother Papyrus was gone, so gone, so gone and never coming back.

Six hours.

Six hours isn’t enough for him to leave Snowdin. Why should he leave Snowdin? Everyone’s here. Everyone was here six hours ago.

He felt at the hole in his jacket, down along his midsection, where Frisk had dealt him a glancing blow just to knock him on the ground and skip his monologue.

Eventually something told him to stand up and he did, and his legs were shaky, and his stance looked just like it had six hours ago. He put his hands in his pockets but his right hand went through the hole, so he put it back up over his mouth like he was cold, and let the fast moving air knock him around a bit. He sidled along the wall of Grillby’s until he reached the entrance, and swung inside the doorway like he was about to be greeted by dozens of familiar and unfamiliar faces, but nothing was left inside but the doldrum, calm draft coming from outside. Which was fine, right? Grillby’s was always a little too loud for Sans’ tastes.

He shook with the warmth and sauntered over to the counter, hopped over like he’d never done, and started looking at the rows of assorted bottles and glasses with all the pace and energy of Papyrus. He swung his arm against one of the counters and heard the glass smash and plastic bounce along the wooden floorboards, but he assured himself that he was carefree, and not angry.

Sans was, of course, not capable of anger.

When he felt it, there was no time before it was converted into laughter or sadness, and if it was sadness it was packed away in a garbage pile near his hip that he never ever showed to anyone except through hidden messages in his most weak-spoken jokes, and even then it felt like the pile only grew, slowly at first, but now six hours later it was filling every bone in his body- literally!- and he couldn’t even find that ironic or funny. Now he was deluding himself, because by trashing Grillby’s bar he was letting out the tiniest bit of anger in the name of laughter, and as soon as he realized he stopped, and as soon as he realized he slowly walked over to one of the chairs around a table and tried to hide his grin again, every part of him still and frozen like the ice outside.

It’s probably fine.

I’m probably fine.

He slipped his phone from his left pocket. There wasn’t any battery in it, and he didn’t feel the need to charge it back up. For the first hour, resting by the wall of the Last Corridor, he would play every one of Papyrus’ voicemails yelling at him, and he’d laugh at every one, and it took him away-- it took him far, far away from everything next to him, and then he played them all again, and then again until it had been two hours and then three and then four, and now it had been six hours and his phone was dry and he had no reason to turn it on again, because he knew there wouldn’t be anything new. He held it up above the table, grinning, and let his hand go free, and a stream of magic kept it upright. Slam it down on the table, Sans. He wanted to slam it down on the table. It’d be the most interesting thing in the world to break, since it had every single one of his memories of his brother contained inside. He could slam it down and never worry again. It wasn’t anger, it was just a reaction-- a necessary cause and effect, because six hours later he would have to give up his ghost and be free again, of everything that held him down. He didn’t slam it down on the table but he tossed it across the room, clattering and tumbling until it reached the elevated portion in the front of the bar where he had stood looking up at the microphone every night before this one.

Six hours later, and nothing changed.

He got up from the table and stepped up onto the platform where the phone had landed, and he caught a glimpse out of the window. Snowdin looked so pale. His fingers were more numb than usual.

Sans stuffed his phone into his left pocket where it wouldn’t fall through, its screen cracked, and slowly stood up to the microphone, and he was uncertain and wavering, and like a spirit he wrapped his hands around the metal pole, lowering it to head height, and spoke.

“you know, w-without all the dogs here, this place has really lost its bite.”

He laughed. Funny joke. Haha.

“now that the bartender’s finally in somewhere tropical, he can finally grill bees.

“man, a-after everything, i feel pretty stripped to the bone.

“glad i don’t gotta go anywhere today, ‘cus there’s a big hole in my chest.

“heh. i’m me, sans all my friends, right?

“l-looks like nobody’s un-dining here tonight, since we’re all outta fish…

“grillby’s new specialty drink: emp-tea.”

Hahahaha. His laugh was really, really painful.

“these jokes are pretty cold, huh?

“really just trying to break the ice.

“but i guess frisk already did that. snow need any more.

“everyone’s already six sleet under.

“at least nobody here’s snowdin any more, right?

“right?”

He leaned against the microphone. His voice was so weak now, and his hands shook like there was an earthquake, but still his grin kept on, and he stared around the empty bar.

Er. Not completely empty. In one of the seats there was a Monster about as tall as him with her eyes nearly closed, listening close but wishing she was far away. After the silence lasted for a little while, and he had stared at her, trying to get his grin away but just putting his hand over it, Alphys opened her eyes and saw that Sans wasn’t telling any more jokes.

“O-Oh, uh,” she stammered. Her words had a weight to them, and she didn’t nearly have the strength. The remnants of tears stuck around her cheekbones. “S-Sorry.”

Sans stared and didn’t say a word, but his eyes spoke very loudly.

“You can… k-keep going, if you want.”

“eh. i-i was just… just d-doin’, y’know, a thing. just…” He struggled.

The two of them took a short breath like usual. Alphys leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

“Y-You’re Sans, right? I t-think I met you when they made me Royal Scientist.”

“yeah,” said Sans.

She didn’t remember him, which was the worst part. They had spent so long together and now, by chance, six hours after the worst thing in their lives, they were in the same bar and grill waiting for something to happen, and nothing was going to.

“Who’d you lose?” she asked.

“my brother,” he murmured.

Alphys nodded slowly.

“why’d you come all t-the way here? you’re from hotlands.”

“T-This is as far away as I can get.”

“this is as close as i can get.”

There it was, Sans remarked. There was Alphys’ smile, the first one she ever made in his twisted little world, the one that lasted a nanosecond but stayed in his memory for the rest of his life.

“You’re, uh… pretty funny, y-you know. Wish I c-could’ve… met you sooner. I-I’m Alphys.”

“well, eh, it’s not too late. this place isn’t burning down anytime soon.” He emerged from his place in front of the microphone and leaned against a wall by the edge of the platform, watching for Alphys’ minute smile. It came, and it went, but his left eye saw it, and that’s all he saw. Hey. He could probably keep this up.

“W-Weird for a guy to be… cracking jokes right after all this.”

“yeah.”

She paused. “D-Does it help?”

That was a question that Sans had asked himself a thousand times and something he never found the answer for. He was inclined to say, ‘no,’ because it really did make everything worse, because he never saw the end of the tunnel when he filled it with fake laughs and real ones. But he said,

“yeah, a little,” because there was no end of the tunnel any more, not with Asgore dead and with the souls all gone. Not with the whole Underground nearly empty. Alphys might as well die in the tunnel with a few good memories.

“Do they h-have anything… good here?” asked Alphys, staring at the countertop.

“you hungry?”

She shrugged and her arms shook the table. “Sure.”

Sans dropped from his place on the podium, his fingers trembling at his side as he struggled not to fall, and he approached Alphys’ table with the half-alive smile that he had kept for so long. He only stared at her eyes, nearly slackjawed, staring and almost saying, don’t you remember me, Al? Remember all the good times we had together? The hundreds and hundreds of hours we spent as friends yelling hysterically about Gaster and all his problems and all his triumphs, and through the insanity of it all we were the anchors to each other’s fears. Don’t you remember? I’m looking at your eyes, Al, and you don’t remember a thing.

He glanced past her chair like an asteroid in gentle orbit and hovered his way to behind the bar again, where an array of broken glasses and bottles stained the floor, and he tried to ignore it. Grillby made the burgers on the spot, but there was still a stockpile of fries in the back, so he took that small moment of silence to assure himself that six hours was enough, and came back with two plates of reheated fries, setting one on either side of Alphys’ table.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

Sans opted for no ketchup. He didn’t feel particularly hungry, either, but it kept his mind from thinking about Papyrus for just another second. Alphys ate like she had been starving for months.

“Guessing t-this place wasn’t abandoned six hours ago.”

“yeah, it wasn’t.”

“S-Seems like it would’ve been nice.”

Sans swallowed down a potato strip whole. “it was pretty n-ice.”

“Hey,” said Alphys, hiding the minute smile, “you already made an ice joke.”

“oh, icy. can’t make the same one twice, can i?”

But Alphys didn’t react that much, laid her head on her shoulder, leaning into the table a ways. “Where are you going after this?”

“wasn’t really thinking of an… ‘after this’.”

“Y-Yeah,” she said.

“i guess… i’ll go back to what i was doing. watching for humans in snowdin.”

“So t-that’s your job, then? Lookout? S-So… Royal Guard?”

“yeah. if it still exists.”

“I knew, uh… Undyne, really well. A-And she’s… I mean, I g-guess you knew her, too.”

“a little.”

Alphys clenched her claws against the table. She started making a smile but it was contorted and awful and made-up, like everything else she had left. “All gone. All of it’s gone. F-For me, after this I-I was gonna go to a cliff and throw myself off. Don’t r-really have anything left. Everyone thinks I-I’m crazy ‘cus of everything I did in my lab, and I-I don’t even know where my little brother is. H-He’s probably dead, like everyone else. An’ I d-didn’t do anything to help him.”

Sans wished he could stop grinning. His brow furrowed as best it could.

“Why the hell are you smiling?!” Alphys screeched, her voice breaking, her hand trembling next to the half-eaten plate of fries as she struggled to stop from yelling any more.

He sat there for a while while her breathing calmed down and her eyes opened again.

“sorry,” he muttered. “i’m not smiling because i want to, i’m smiling because i have to.”

She released her claws from the table and sat back in the chair.

“Do you h-have anyone you still care about?”

He wanted to say, yeah, you.

“not any more.”

“T-Then you’ve got nobody to impress. Nobody’s watching t-to see if you’re gonna break under pressure.”

“like i said, making jokes is easier than… whatever you’re going through.”

She shrugged. “I’m n-not gonna be here for much longer. So I m-might as well make my last few feelings real, right? I-I’m pissed. I’m mad, a-an’ I thought it’d be better here, ‘cause nobody was here, and nobody would come looking for me.”

“yeah,” said Sans. “this is pretty much as remote as it gets, now.”

Alphys sunk into her seat and took a meager bite from one of the fries. “S-Sorry for… letting it all out.”

“eh. worse to not have anyone to tell, i guess.”

“I mean, I-I don’t even know you.”

“alright. why don’t we get to know each other, then? always liked meeting new friends, anyway.” Sans struggled to make his grin wider.

“I, uh…” She thought for a second. “I like a-anime, I guess.”

Sans thought back a while. “do ya like… mew mew kissie cutie?”

Alphys swallowed, nodded. Smiled again. Three times, now. “Y-Yeah, a little.”

“too bad they messed up the second season, huh?”

Then came another smile, wide as her face, but it didn’t disappear, and in the dim light of Grillby’s it shone, and Sans saw Alphys grin with so much sadness and so much pain that he forgot everything else. Her eyes focused on his and she thought of somewhere far, far away, and without meaning to the Royal Scientist started crying silently.

“y-yeah, i’d… i watched the first one with papyrus, i-i started making jokes and puns. and he got so angry, i mean-- he just couldn’t handle it. we were halfway through the third episode w-when he said, ‘sans, i’m th-mew with you!’ and stood up, and walked outta the room. a-and i laughed, real hard.”

Sans wanted to cry.

He should have.

Six hours ago he was fine and now everything was gone, and all he had left was this little anecdote with his brother, and it should have made him cry, but his face just contorted until it reached an unhappy medium staring at Alphys, and Sans wasn’t supposed to cry, because all he needed after six hours was the bar and grill and his jokes and his phone and his voicemails.

“He sounds n-nice,” she managed.

“he was,” he stammered.

The two sat in silence for a while, together, and the wind outside blew in, and washed away everything they had, and then Sans and Alphys just had the gentle hum of the dead Underground around them.

“You don’t cry a whole lot, huh?”

“it’s exhausting. i’m already pretty tired as is.”

“M-Making puns a-and trying to laugh at everything is exhausting, too, right? I m-mean… seems like that’s what you do to cope. A-And it doesn’t look like it helps at all, not even a little.”

“alphys… you really don’t know me. i’m a pretty bare bones guy-- i don’t let myself get rattled too easily, so i’ve gotten skele’d at fibia-ing. can’t focus too much on today, gotta focus on to-marrow.”

“Yeah,” she said. “There it is again. You m-made at least one pun, there.”

“sadness isn’t something i’m good at, al. so… y-yeah. i’m gonna make puns. gets my mind off it.”

She sighed and wiped her eyes.

Another silence which seemed to last forever. Alphys stared around the room, her half-open eyes dancing in rhythm with the silent jukebox, and set them on a bottle on a shelf behind the bar. She reached up her hand like always, hoping some amount of magic would flow through her fingers, but nothing did.

“C-Can you get that?”

“yeah,” said Sans. He reached forward as she had, but the tightness of his breath kept his soul firmly planted, just like Alphys.

“M-Magic’s an emotional thing,” she said. “You know th-that as well as me. Can’t use it when you’re all bundled up.”

“you’re one to talk. weren’t you the one crying earlier? that’s about as open as you can get.”

“Never been able to use it. Never mattered how I was feeling.”

I remember when you lifted a plate of noodles in the mess hall with your hand five feet away from it, and everyone yelled in praise. Alphys had finally done it. The scientist working closest to Gaster, the most mythical and magical Monster alive, had finally lifted a plate of noodles. We laughed about that one for a long, long while.

“everyone’s capable.”

He walked over and grabbed the bottle, setting it on the table between him and Alphys.

It read, ‘MONSTER WHISKEY!’, exclamation point and all.

“Well, that’s a little racist.”

“the name’s not even that accurate.”

Alphys took it from its place, swung off the bottlecap and downed a mouthful without even stopping to take a breath. She recoiled a little, cringed, and set it down carefully.

“jesus, al, what was that?”

“If-- if you’re not gonna take this seriously, let’s n-not take any of it seriously. Let’s just go crazy. There’s no tomorrow, there’s no yesterday, th-there’s no six hours ago.”

She drank a while more and made no effort to hide her reaction.

“and this is your best approach? drinking by yourself? seems like it’d just make you more miserable.”

“C’mon,” Alphys said, and she reached her hand out with the bottle, motioning for Sans to take it. “Drinking with friends. Th-That’s what this is.”

“do i really look like the type?”

“Do I?”

“kinda.”

Her short laugh was joyless. “I eat ramen noodles and drink soda. Take it.”

With a little hesitation, and a haunting feeling, Sans took the bottle and swallowed just as much as she had, and in an instant he felt the magic drink’s… power? It struck him in the midsection without any apparent wound, and it felt wrong to only take one drink. The taste was awful. Grillby was a terrible judge of liquor. He drank half the bottle before Alphys had a chance to stop him.

“Alright, b-big guy, save some for me.”

“whoops.”

He handed it back over, and Alphys took another swig. “y-you know, i used to be royal scientist. i know what it’s like to live off noodles and soda. now i live off just ketchup, which is way more satisfying.”

She snorted. “You live off of… k-ketchup?”

“see this?” He pointed down at his abdomen where a gentle, slow flow of red emerged from the hole in his jacket.

“Oh, God, you alright?”

“it’s ketchup, al.”

“Yeah, b-but-- did somebody do that to you?”

“the human.”

Alphys frowned. “And… a-and you’re still alive?”

“i was… heading to the ruins, to see if the woman there could help me. s-she knew a lot about healing magic. but i don’t really have the strength to get there, any more. she’s probably dead, too.”

Alphys finished the bottle of MONSTER WHISKEY! and sat it down on the table, racketing against the hollow wood.

“you want more?”

Alphys shrugged plainly.

He got more.

The two went through MONSTER RUM!, MONSTER VODKA! and MONSTER GIN! without the two even starting to get exhausted, every moment as empty as the last, until they finished their fifth bottle and stared at one another in disbelief.

“W-Wait, since when w-were you Royal Scientist? Asgore m-made the position for me.”

“don’t even ask.”

“I’ve gotta ask. I-I’m not gonna be here much longer, s-so just tell me.”

He wanted to frown. “you should stick around, al.”

“N-Nobody cares about me. Nobody’s gonna miss me. I d-did one good thing, which was saving people in the hotel and S-Snowdin, but now, uh… I’d b-be doing everyone a favor.”

“you’ll find new people. you’ll… find something else.”

“Undyne, Asgore, Mettaton, I’ve lost. I-I can’t just… replace them with new people.”

Sans didn’t really know what to say. He muttered, “yeah.” All of him wanted to scream, Alphys, I remember. Don’t you remember? We were a good team. We were good together. You lifted the noodles in the mess hall and loved when I made fun of Mew Mew Kissie Cutie 2. Al, you’re not alone. But it was a secret he kept for the next year and he didn’t tell her until there had been an earthquake and infinitely better memories to talk about.

“I don’t feel s-super drunk, yet,” Alphys said. “You still h-haven’t answered my question. How were you Royal Scientist i-if…”

“let’s pretend i made it up. makes things simpler.”

“Okay,” she said weakly. Simpler was better.

“you want me to get more drinks?”

“Sure.”

Six hours. Six bottles.

Seven.

Eight.

Twelve.

Alphys sat in her chair and drank with Sans, and she cried, and she cried all the way there, and when the two were done drinking one bottle Sans would lurch out of his chair to get more, and still he couldn’t cry, but the feeling of anger boiled up under the heat, and now it was flowing through him.

He reached his hand up and in an instant, the table next to them had been slammed against the front window, tossing the microphone aside and shattering the glass, tumbling into the dark snow. Suddenly he was breathing hard and grinning horribly, and wishing he could tear the grin off his stupid, weak face.

Alphys sat for a moment, still, her eyes hinged open with the liquor really, really starting to kick in. “We should burn this place to the ground.”

He turned back to her, still panting. “why?”

“Grillby’s made of fire, i-it makes sense. A-And it’d look cool.”

Alphys and Sans stood outside Grillby’s by the southern trees, right next to the discarded table.

“You’re mad, r-right?”

“yeah.”

“Just… j-just mess it up. Break the whole thing down.”

Sans faced her drunkenly. “you do it. s-spark a fire. c’mon. you’re… y-you deserve it. you’re mad an’ sad and you can do it.”

“Why d-don’t…” She stared at Grillby’s stupid, ugly exterior. “Let’s do it together.”

Their arms raised up in sync, and in an instant, with all the world gone and tomorrow gone and six hours ago gone, some amount of magic flew through their fingers.

“You killed her,” screeched Alphys. “You killed t-the only person I loved!”

Grillby’s was shot with a stream of electricity, and all the glass shattered as Sans pelted it with an invisible force.

“A-And Asgore-- you killed the King just ‘cus you’re a stupid asshole coward KID!”

The building caught on fire.

Sans didn’t say it but he was thinking of Papyrus and Toriel and their voices echoed in his head, and he was struggling not to fall over, and his left eye gleamed a moonlit blue and Grillby’s collapsed in on itself in a blaze.

“Mettaton didn’t do ANYTHING TO YOU!”

Stop grinning.

Six hours later and you’ve finally gotten over it, Sans. Finally you can stop smiling.

He was left standing in the snow with Alphys hyperventilating and screaming and crying, and all he could do was stand there motionless, and all he could do was stand, and all he could do was stand.

“I’m g-gonna go,” she whispered into the wind next to him, and he knew exactly where she was going, and Alphys disappeared into the snow.

He combed over the wreckage in the kind of half-dead limp that one would expect of anyone else six hours later, and he didn’t find anything appealing, and his drugged demeanor only made it harder to step over the bits of wood and debris. Sans had no idea how long it had been since he was born or since Papyrus had died, because now six hours had both blended into five hours and seven, and he questioned if Alphys was ever there in the first place. Maybe every single person in the Underground was dead, and in his stupor he had burned down Grillby’s after looting it like a child. He danced in the snow like a child. Sans bled. Sans whimpered, but nobody came. He searched the ground for her footsteps but there were none, or he missed them in the blurriness of the snow. His jacket became waterlogged and even more useless than before, but like a terrified infant he couldn’t let go of it, because he had been wearing it six hours ago, and six hours ago everything was fine.

Everything was fine six hours ago.

Everything was okay.

He dialed Papyrus’ number on his phone and then remembered that it was out of battery, and its screen was cracked and he rubbed ice in its wound, hoping it would make things better.

Six hours later and he was useless.

Six hours later and he was going to let the last living Monster in the underground toss herself off a cliff because she didn’t remember the time she lifted a plate of noodles in the mess hall, and who thought her first use of magic was on a bar and grill far, far from home.

She was going to die because he was a coward.

No, he tried to say.

In an instant Sans had taken a shortcut to the garbage dump in Waterfall, and there was Alphys staring at the darkness, and he limped toward her, and wrapped his arms around hers a moment before she leapt, a moment before she even noticed he was there, and he was crying like Sans had never been capable of crying, and it hurt so much worse than laughing.

“you’re not alone, al. d-don’t even question it, b-but even though you just met me half an hour ago, i’ve known you for as long as i can remember, e-even if you don’t remember. and you’re not alone.”

She didn’t know what to say. Her eyes welled up with tears and she had thrown her glasses into the abyss in front of her only a few seconds before, and she faced him with an exhausted confusion.

“can’t lose you again. not after i just met you.”

“Th-That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” she mumbled, and laughed.

And he laughed too. And he laughed really loudly, and it hurt just like all the laughs before, except this time it was taking him to six hours ago when it was okay to joke and laugh, and when nothing was ever real.

“please. let’s just get outta here.”

Alphys thought she saw something moving in the pit. “I wanna get out of here. All the way out.”

“you’re strong, alright? strong enough to, i don’t know-- set a bar on fire with just your mind. strong enough to keep going. i know that for a fact.”

She didn’t have a response, and only stood up straighter, not diverting an ounce of attention away from the cliff.

“maybe we could--”

From their left, a Monster screamed, in the guttural and terrible way that somebody with no other hope does, “HELP!”

Both of them turned, and saw the Nice Cream Man, clutching an opened urn as he hung by his leg, embedded between two rocks. He swung and swerved, inches from falling, and something stopped Alphys from jumping, and something made her rush over to the cliff above him. Then Sans followed like he would do for the next eight years, and then the two of them started working their way down.

It was unstable. With every footfall the two boulders he was stuck between swayed and nearly fell, so Sans and Alphys moved like phantoms, taking minutes to get from one end of the abyss to the other. They whispered him instructions until he had a handhold along a rope, and then out of pure want for safety they spent hours and hours making it as easy as possible, and by the time six hours had passed the Nice Cream Man was panting and crying on the cliffside.

“You really made me feel like I was going to make it,” he said, and then, “You could do that for everyone else, y’know. You could be a queen.”

He went off, and then it was her and Sans, and the experience had given them no chance to talk, and no chance to reconsider, and the alcohol in them was finally starting to wear off.

“D-Did you hear him?”

“yeah.”

She thought for a moment. The cliff was still right there. “Could… c-could I be queen?”

Sans grinned like always. He said, “sure, why not?” with the kind of upfront and calm tone that he was familiar with.

They made their way to the Capitol, and one of the Monsters there thanked Alphys for letting her hide in the Old Lab, and said, “Queen? Definitely. I’m sure Asgore would have put you as his replacement, anyways.”

They made their way to MK, hiding in the corner of their house, and he got excited for the first time in twelve hours and said, “Yeah, you’d make a cool queen!” despite everything.

They made their way to Gerson, who was counting up the number of piles of ash that were unaccounted for in the massive rows of urns, and he said, “Leadership requires training. But you are kind, and that is the only prerequisite.”

Asgore’s throne room became her throne room. Asgore’s chair became her chair, and it all gave rise to New Alphys. Then she was standing in front of it, a few days after the massacre that she remembered for the rest of her life, her claws shaking less than usual, a half-tilted crown on her head. Like a fever dream she had gotten here, and suddenly everything had become still and comprehensible.

Sans was standing in front of her, fiddling with his broken phone. She peered over her shoulder. Just a cracked screen.

“That’s an easy fix,” she said.


	5. The Fame of Flowey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look, my name’s Flowey. I’m very famous around here.”

Who was Flowey?

Who was Flowey, really?

If you had asked the Underground as a collective you would have heard one unified, strong answer, jovial applause and shouting, the name itself inspiring patriotism in even the most isolate of Monsters- Alphys and Sans included- who would have otherwise been stuck in one pit or another. With so much time on his hands Flowey was a hero, and to the collective living Underground he was the greatest hero who ever lived. If only they knew his identity or his upbringing, maybe they would have changed their minds, but the fame of Flowey was nothing short of universal. If you had asked the Underground together all packed together in a room, despite how impossible it might have seemed to Flowey, they would have shouted his name like he had brought them into heaven, and as if he ruled the Underground itself behind that half-smiling mask of a face on his tiny body.

The first friend Flowey had made in the Underground was old Gerson, because he was aware that Gerson held no qualms for strange requests and did not doubt his claims that he could help. The flower was nervous of the smiling skeleton who had the potential to remember, so for a time Gerson was his communication with the other Monsters, until he had united the Royal Guard’s lovers, given Alphys limited edition anime, sent friendship notes and puzzles to Papyrus, and told Asgore that his wife was still alive. Once the Underground was hearing his name in passing they were seeing him in passing, too, and it felt like the little flower knew exactly what to say, and in every conversation the Monsters came out happier and more fulfilled. By the time Sans finally noticed that the nervous feeling in his gut was making friends with his brother, Flowey was the most well-known and liked Monster in the underground, by so far, by such a wide margin, that he couldn’t bring himself to fight. Because Sans knew, and Flowey knew Sans knew, that the source of all his knowledge was the resets and the altering of the timeline, and although their interactions were sparse, there was a mutual understanding between the two of them. At least you’re not using it to hurt anybody, he thought.

The Fame of Flowey extended all the way from Asgore’s throne room- where the miserable king was still sulking over his failures alongside the hidden six human souls- to Hotlands and Waterfall and Snowdin, to the Ruins where the old queen waited for the seventh human to arrive. Flowey was incapable of feeling love, but he remembered what it was like. He told her everything, every menial detail, and announced that this was his last go-around-- that this time he was going to help everybody, once and for all.

Soon his name was spoken like a god’s name would, and although Flowey had long since moved past his god complex it was still amusing; the Underground adored him as an idol, as a messiah who had come to solve every problem, personal or impersonal. He was on Mettaton’s show every night, and yet took care of kids during the day. He was the King’s personal assistant like Sans had been Alphys’ in another ending, and like Sans he seemed always to know what to say to get on his good side, yet he tore himself away from royal duties simply to spend time with the best and the worst of people. The Fame of Flowey preceded him, but it still failed to capture the way he entranced a room with his words, and how he could keep every single Monster on his good side without an ounce of effort.

If you asked Toriel about Flowey, she would break down crying.

If you asked Sans about Flowey, he wouldn’t respond.

If you asked Asgore about Flowey, all he would do is grin.

What laid beneath his exterior was so simple and easy to explain that Flowey had trouble never saying it, saying that underneath his stem and petals was nothing but the gentle emptiness of a soulless Monster, who had come to seem very tired and yet remained jovial and grinning and perfect, like he was required to be. It was all means to an end, which is what he told himself when the Underground screamed his name, and when they said he must be feeling awfully good about his fame; the truth was that Flowey felt none of it, and he felt nothing at all, and that his only goal in the world necessitated seven human souls.

Who was Flowey?

In everyone else’s minds, he was Flowey the Flower.

In his mind, he was something different. Something which had changed over the course of an infinite time, and had now come to its apex.

But although in the dampness of the cavern he was heralded, he had one problem he could never solve, which was the Barrier, and although the Monsters were united they were united in one cause-- to be free. To finally have seven souls and leave the Underground forever. When Flowey discovered his powers moot and felt, as all did, a presence in the Ruins that had been absent before, he knew that something was wrong.

Frisk’s footsteps were nervous and uneven, but they were also recited-- the human knew where they were going, almost. Checking every wall for another way out, trembling as they went from the trampled flower bed all the way to the entrance to the Ruins. Flowey watched all of this, biding his time, until next to the wide purple door he emerged from the ground.

“Howdy! I’m Flowey. Fl--”

Frisk nearly leaped back, panting, terrified. The flower did not know what to say, but the cogs in his head began turning quickly, and his grin rested into a plain and honest look.

“I’ve… already killed you, before, huh? And you loaded your SAVE.”

The human sat with their arms around their legs, staring wide-eyed at the terrifying beast in front of them.

“Look, my name’s Flowey.

“I’m very famous around here.”

Frisk murmured, “Please don’t hurt me.”

The Monster in the ground did his best to shrug his petals. “Well, that’d be kinda useless, wouldn’t it? I know you probably wouldn’t give up until you found a way to stop me from attacking. So let’s say being pitiful and sad counts as a win. Congratulations, human. You win.”

“W-What?”

“I’m not quite as stupid as the people around here. I know what it’s like to die and come back-- trust me, I’ve done it a thousand times. So for your sake, don’t reset again. I’d probably just say the same things anyway.”

“...Reset? I d-don’t know what that is! Stop yelling at me!”

Flowey tilted his head to the side. “Oh, boy. You’re pretty new to this. It’s too bad you’re so determined-- I really, really need that seventh soul.

“Come on,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to convince you.”

Frisk had their arms crossed and their face kept the same maniacal terror as before-- one unfamiliar with the feeling of dying and one unfamiliar with the feeling of coming back to life. Flowey was a great guide of the Ruins because he had been here so many times, and although the dark place lacked the gentle tremors of footsteps and conversations, as it was empty, it was still decently relaxing.

“Dare I ask your name, or are you gonna start crying?”

“Frisk,” they murmured. “What is this place?”

“This is the Underground! Your usual tour guide’s not here right now, since she’s living it up with everyone else in the area around the Capitol. Actually, this whole area’s deserted. Hope you don’t mind.” He slammed two rocks onto buttons with his stem and politely commanded the third to follow. “I’m the greatest person in the Underground, alright? The greatest Monster. So you can trust me.”

“Y-You’re a Monster? So there are others?”

“What an idiot. What, are there talking flowers aboveground?”

“...No.”

He eased off a little. People get more calm if you ease off at the right time, as opposed to how they get if you’re kind all the time. “I’ll just say this, human, we’re not that different. I used to be just as clueless. Try not to take it personally.”

“I j-just don’t understand what’s going on. I just wanna go home.”

“You’re not the only one.”

Frisk’s second journey through the Underground was already lasting hundreds of times longer than their first; the trail from the entrance was direct and rehearsed, and it felt like Flowey knew every corner like it was his home. When they did, indeed, reach his old home, lying in wait in front of a depleted and dead tree, its walls stone on the outside and a warm gold on the inside, all he could think of was the future. The infinite memories of being Flowey departed for just a moment, and then he was a kid again, playing in the halls like always, like that had been his only life. Then he was snapped back, and reminded that it was only a memory, and that although the taste was in his mouth, he knew that Determination was not something one gave up willingly.

The coldness of the Ruins and Home was nothing compared to Snowdin, but Flowey was so used to it, and he had a number of blankets stashed by the entrance to give Frisk.

“How’s there so much snow under a mountain?”

“I’ll be honest, I have no idea. But it gets even colder and windier after you kill everybody!” The human shot Flowey a terrified look, and he laughed it off. “Don’t worry. I haven’t done that for a long time. Trying to be a nice person, right now. You know-- doing my best.”

“Why?”

“You’re fulla questions, huh? If I tell you everything, you’ve got no reason to keep me around.”

The two had similar heights, but Flowey, like so many others, had come to seem very, very tall. He weaved through the snow at pace, and Frisk behind him struggled to keep up adrift the gentle wind. The human contemplated, for a moment, how it could possibly get colder and windier.

Snowdin Forest was a bit desolate like before, but Frisk, despite Flowey’s best efforts to keep them free of distractions, noticed figures in the distance which paid them no mind. There were hundreds of inhabitants of the forest, and Flowey had almost helped them all. But now, with freedom so close, he didn’t have to keep it up any longer.

Maybe he liked it, in a way. Seeing all these people he’d come to both love and hate, happy as could be. He had reached this equilibrium before, but never for so long. His parents no longer cried at night, or at least they cried with the knowledge that they no longer hated each other, and the collective Underground loved him not for his character but for how good things were, now. Flowey could not feel empathy but there was a mulling satisfaction to it all, and he was smart enough to realize that once he was himself again, all the accomplishments would pay off. He was the best person in the Underground, and soon he would be a person.

A voice came from behind the two.

“hey,” called Sans.

Flowey swerved around in the dirt, and brought up his fake grin again. Both him and Sans knew it was fake, but it was a way to communicate that, hey. I’m not killing anybody right now. “Howdy, Sans! It’s so great to see you!”

The short skeleton looked down, his teeth locked in a grin that never faded, and stepped forward a bit. “looks like you found a human. great job.”

“U-Uh…” Frisk stammered.

Sans reached forward a bony hand with no particularly interesting features. Panicked, but with no hesitation, Frisk grabbed it, emitting the enormous and drawn out sound of a whoopie cushion. Sans let off a quick, “heh”.

“Hey, Sans! We’re friends, and I’d LOVE to have this talk, but I’m in a big rush to take Frisk here to somewhere safe. If you get what I mean.”

“buddy, what’s the rush? just trying to make some new friends.”

“Y-You’re a skeleton,” whimpered Frisk.

“yeah, and i’m bad to the bone.”

Fortunately, Flowey did not have any blood vessels, or else one would have popped. “We’re gonna go now, pal. Friend. Buddy. Guy. Don’t make me send any more FRIENDSHIP NOTES to Papyrus. Or, y’know, I might just send something slightly less friendly.” By this Flowey meant he would tear Sans’ brother limb from limb.

But to the threat Sans only shrugged and grinned further. “eh. you wouldn’t. if my math isn’t off, you can’t reset any more. the human’s got a lot more power. so you’re just trying to get to alphys’ lab as fast as possible, to, eh…” He trailed off. “just here to make sure that doesn’t happen. friendo. pally. brother-from-another-flower bestie of mine.”

Frisk stood up suddenly and shouted, “What are you two insane creepy Monster people even talking about?!”

Sans knelt, and Flowey squirmed, the fake smirk long gone. “looks like flowey didn’t explain every single detail. you’re special, if i’m not mistaken. you can time travel, even after dying. flowey used to have that power, even if he doesn’t tell anyone. and now that you’re here, he’s lost it! i think he’s a little… miffed?”

“Miffed? I’m using it for a good reason. You know, I’ve made the Underground into a utopia. You know that, right?”

“heh. not for everyone, but it’s pretty nice.” He stared at the snow.

“I just really, really wanna go home,” said Frisk. “I m-mean, I don’t wanna hurt anybody. I’ll leave if it means your, uh-- time travelling stuff comes back.”

“oh, trust me, kid. that’s not why he wants you.”

Flowey dug around the human in a slow circle, facing Sans. “I’m gonna take this human home, like the good natured Monster that I am. And for everyone’s sake, you’re gonna back off.”

“for everyone’s sake, or just yours?”

Sans disappeared in a draft of wind.

“Who is he? Who was he?” asked Frisk, the air picking up and the snow brushing against both of them in a flurry.

“He already told you his name, stupid. And… he’s probably the only person here who doesn’t like me.”

The human tilted their head a little. “...I don’t like you that much, either.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna follow me.”

“And you’re gonna take me home?”

“Sure, Frisk. I’ll take you right out of here, straight home, if that’s what you want!” He grinned petal-to-petal.

The human shuffled in the snow a little, the impatient flower swaying with the wind. “You… don’t seem like you’re really happy. You’re making it look like you are, but it’s really obvious that you’re faking it.”

Flowey stopped bobbing, and his expression turned to neutral quickly. “I… haven’t felt anything for a long, long time.”

“Are you ever going to again?”

“Don’t know yet. Come on, it’s cold out here. The town isn’t far off.”

For fifteen more minutes they walked, with the occasional face on either side of the path, but Flowey was smart and took a route to garner minimum attention; the fame of Flowey overshadowed him like all of his sins, and still he worried he wouldn’t be fast enough, that Frisk would realize what was really going on and reset or kill him for good. Tumbling along the edge, balancing on a thread. Like no human before, Frisk was determined to survive, and Flowey was determined to kill them. But none of this was spoken aloud, and Frisk took Flowey’s calmer and quieter demeanor simply as another one of his quirks.

For fifteen minutes they walked and then they reached Snowdin, where double the inhabitants burst open their doors to greet the savior of the Underground, who modestly claimed that Frisk was a very funny-looking Monster who was left behind in the Ruins. Papyrus, the taller counterpart to the terrifying, grinning skeleton earlier, wrapped his arms around the human as wide as he could, taking the wind out of them and making them chuckle nervously. “If my best friend Flowey likes you, I like you too!!”

If you asked Papyrus about Flowey, he would stand up enthusiastically, he’d break the ceiling with the height of his love and appreciation; when Papyrus was lonely there was Flowey, clouding up the space that Sans so desperately desired. When Papyrus was spending time with anyone it was with Flowey, and his brother had no desire to spend time with his new friend, so it was just Papyrus and Flowey as the greatest friends in the Underground. Flowey had a lot of trouble justifying all the attention to one Monster, but he knew that once he was himself, Papyrus would be the best friend he could ever imagine. Dedicated. Hyperactive. Genuine in all ways, at all times. Flowey asked himself every day if he was capable of being genuine, but for his own sake he pretended like he was. One day I’ll be honest with everything, he thought. One day, with everything perfect and everything fixed, I’ll be able to appreciate all the good I’ve done.

They spent too long in town for Flowey’s tastes. By the time Frisk was done meeting and greeting every new face in Snowdin two hours had passed, and now Papyrus was following them around in a giggling fit.

“Occasionally- and by occasionally I mean all the time- I get just a HAIR annoyed with that town,” said Flowey, as him and Frisk departed toward the icy river. “MK claims to be my biggest fan, but so does Papyrus, and of COURSE this is an impasse that necessitates fifteen minutes of argument. They do this every time I come. They argue over the same things! I’d say it was cute if I wasn’t, you know, completely fed up with them.”

Flowey thought, why am I telling you this? I’m going to kill you in ten minutes. Maybe less. I can’t feel guilt. I can’t feel regret. I shouldn’t be afraid of hurting you, Frisk, and I’m not. But why am I telling you all this like we’re about to be conversationalists for a lifetime?

A lifetime’s too short, I know that much. I’ve seen so many lifetimes. I’m talking to you like we’re going to be friends forever. Like me and Chara used to say.

They both hopped onto the River Person’s boat- Flowey’s roots uplifting- and the hooded figure, though shadowy, gave Frisk a warm feeling of calm.

“I love to ride in my boat.”

“I’m very aware. Just take me to Hotlands, please. Me and my friend, here.”

“As you wish.”

What was effectively a plank dangling in the dark and cool waters instantly transformed into a fast-moving vehicle before Frisk could understand what was happening; the River Person’s gloved hands shimmered with magic, and the forest and snow around them sped by without a second thought.

“That seemed like a nice town,” said Frisk. “And nice people. E-Even if they look weird. I mean, they all like you. You must’ve done a lot of good things for them.”

Flowey stared at the rushing water behind them. “So many.”

“I wish I didn’t really have to go. Wish I could stay for a little while and check out all these cool places.”

The flower nodded. It felt like the purple-sweatered human behind him was almost a replica of Chara, but off kilter, only a remnant, and so different in every way. With his breath short Flowey got nervous. The boat was quick enough that already Waterfall’s scenery was starting to transform into a warmer temperature, and he was running out of time to turn back.

River Person spoke up suddenly. “The famous Flowey is known for much. But the rescue of a human seems to have caught even him off guard.”

“I’m not a human! I’m a… funny looking Monster.”

“An interesting definition for a human. I suppose it fits. You and I are not dissimilar.”

Flowey said, “Humans and Monsters have always been a little bit similar. They can coexist, at least. Emphasis on CAN. With the way the other kids acted, I don’t blame the King.”

“What did the King do?” asked Frisk.

“Stuff that he’s not gonna do to you, since I’m your protector.”

The hooded figure nodded toward the approaching Hotlands, so in tune with the rhythm of the river that simply travelling was worth a thousand words. “Our mutual friend has never let us down.”

Flowey leaned over to Frisk, whispering, “Do you think River Person’s talking about me or Asgore?”

The human loudly said, “Who’s Asgore?”

“The king. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Hotlands could be felt the instant Frisk and Flowey entered its border, the waft of another medium entering them, flowing through the very air, with the heat and unstable energy fueling the Core in the distance. The collection of rocky platforms wavered between bursts of steam and warmth, and the nearest thing approaching civilization was the massive rectangular lab, sitting plainly on a ridge near the river, which stopped just short of the massive magma-filled pits.

“Have a nice day,” said River Person.

“Oh, I will,” murmured Flowey.

The human and the esteemed Savior of the Underground hopped off the plank-like boat and went along the path toward Alphys’ lab.

“This place is so awesome,” exclaimed Frisk. “It’s so HOT!”

“That’s why they call it Hotlands. Asgore is awful with names. Although-- so am I! Flowey’s an awful name.”

The human looked down and grinned. “That’s not an awful name at all. I th-think it’s…” They trailed off, thinking for a moment, staring at the flower which was sidling through the rocks in a hurry. Not too long ago he had thrown pellets and strangled Frisk to death at the entrance to the Ruins immediately after putting on the nicest demeanor possible; now the same look was in Flowey’s eyes, the happy-but-worried look, the kind that was inches away from doing it all again.

“It’s… what? You can’t just stop a sentence right there. You’re pretty rude, huh?” The Monster’s shadow against the molten-hot mixture far below seemed to grow, and with it his face began to twist slightly.

“I think I forgot to say ‘thank you’ to the person on that boat,” Frisk murmured, though their words seemed assertive. “Maybe I’ll reset to go back and do that.”

“No, no no no!” Flowey burst out. “There’s no need!” The worry was not within one individual reset but of Frisk’s growing realization of their ability. They could load their save, they could reset back to the beginning. They could start predicting Flowey like he had started predicting every single person in the Underground, and by the time he realized what was happening, ten other versions of him would have already forgotten. Or worse. “Resetting is painful. Worse than ‘stubbed your toe’ painful. Worse than ‘burns all over your body’ painful. Only do it for really big stuff, alright, Frisk?” It was a lie, though for a human, maybe there was some amount of emotional pain attached.

The human stammered, “O-Oh.” Out of their own lack of knowledge they believed Flowey, at least for the moment, and with an unheard sigh of relief, Flowey continued until the two were at the doors of the tall red laboratory. “Is this how I get home?”

“Yup. It’s not gonna take long.”

“I’m… I think I’m gonna miss you, Flowey.”

Flowey winced. “Going to miss you, too, friend.”

The metal doors slid open quickly, and with them a short lizard-looking Monster appeared from the left side, her expression tremendously excited and her glasses tilted half to the side from the sudden ruckus. “Flowey! Oh man, it’s good to see you!”

“Alphys!” he exclaimed, with feigned enthusiasm. “This is Frisk.” Flowey swung one of his petals in their direction, and they nodded happily.

“H-Hi, Frisk!”

“They’re a human.”

The scientist’s expression immediately dropped a peg, and she bit her lip with all of her upper teeth. “Oh!”

“Yes.”

“I’ll, uh… g-get the THING ready, then.”

Flowey and Frisk stumbled into the wide open lab, colored an ugly mixture of green and blue, extending to seemingly the top of Hotland, and though the human’s movements were full of grandeur as they stared around its strange interior, Flowey the Famous was staring intently at Alphys’ nervous movements with the feeling of both impatience and terror on his expression; even though he felt none of those things, he knew that in this moment, they were the correct response. The growing tension in his short and green midsection went unnoticed from the stunned Frisk, who admired every wall and piece of furniture in Alphys’ lab like it was the greatest thing they would ever see.

From her desk Alphys produced a small metallic device resembling a USB stick, and her hand trembled slightly as she handed it to Flowey the Famous, whose petals were trembling. He clasped it between two leaves, and the anticipation broke his grin, faltering instantly into a horrific maw, which Alphys did her best not to notice. He slid along the floor of the lab until he was right behind Frisk, still staring wide-eyed in circles.

In a swift and shaky motion Flowey plunged the small end of the electronic into Frisk’s sternum from behind, and the human felt all at once a terrible, aching and unending pain, soaring throughout their body; all at once Frisk grew weaker than could be described.

“Alphys,” growled Flowey in a voice she had never heard. “This drains their power of Determination?” Frisk dropped to their knees, gasping for breath.

She stammered, “W-Well, it disables it f-for a few d--”

It was sudden.

More sudden than anything anyone had ever seen in the Underground.

The Fame of Flowey dissipated in but a moment, his body unchanging but his shadow exploring the room in its vastness as he conjured up every last bit of energy in his body, an unending unrelenting force of thorns and pellets all at once, breaking his promise and transforming Flowey into the Monster that they knew he was. Frisk tumbled forward, struggling to sit up as the grinning thing in front of them swirled with seemingly infinite magic. He looked apologetic, but it would only be a moment until it was all--

“Stop!” called Alphys’ voice, but it was louder and powerful; the practiced sound of somebody who had ruled the Underground for eight years. Flowey turned to see, where they had not been a moment before, Sans and Alphys from another ending.

Oh. This was different.

His voice was more gravelly than normal, but restrained from his desperate and horrific one. “Who are you? Why’s there… a SECOND ALPHYS?!”

“we’re time travellers,” said the newly appeared Sans, his wide grin honest, if a little panicked. Him and Alphys, never straying more than a step from one another, sidled to where Frisk was panting on the ground, still staring at Flowey’s apparition and power, which he was quickly putting to rest.

“And we detected that this timeline had something really, really bad happening. So we came to stop that.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Flowey sarcastically. “So you think you know everything, based on a few things you DETECTED. Howdy. I’m Flowey! I’m really famous around here. Get out of my way before I hurt you. Tch, time travelers, okay, sure! FRISK IS MINE.”

“really, bud?” Flowey squirmed at that one. “actual time travelers, from a different timeline. doesn’t that fascinate you? it sure fascinated asriel, last we checked.”

He paused for a moment, and in that moment all of his magic drooped and fell, contained back within him, returning Flowey to his short and pathetic posture. “...Fine. I guess it can wait. Frisk isn’t exactly resetting any time soon.”

“What do you mean?” asked Alphys. Specifically, the new Alphys.

“I just removed their ability. So we’re pretty much dandy waiting around and chatting about… whatever it is you two clowns chat about.”

Alphys, upon witnessing all of this, leaned up against her desk with her jaw held open and limp. The new arrivals were taller than they looked, and in contrast to her dress or lab coats, her counterpart was wearing casual, slightly oversized clothes, and every part of her seemed noticeably thinner and lighter. Her demeanor was that of a completely different Alphys, which was second on her list of insane things relative to one another-- the first was that two time travelers had just appeared in her lab to stop the famous Flowey, and all three seemed perfectly comfortable with the idea. Her claws locked into the floor of the lab as she struggled not to scream.

“Maybe we should start by chatting about, uh…” Alphys looked around the lab. It reminded her of a much different time, but since the lights were still on, there wasn’t anything unpleasant about it. Aside from her awful taste in decorations. “What’s going on in this timeline? You said you’re famous. You’d know a lot about things around here, right?” She made her way to the fallen Frisk and did her best to keep them comfortable as the shocks of losing Determination kept them grounded.

“I’ve made this place a paradise. Basically, everyone is happy. Your concept of ‘bad’ is pretty terrible if you think we’re worth visiting.” Flowey scoffed. “And right before I get the seventh soul to make things even better! You two really are idiots. Even if you’re… SUAVE idiots.”

“eh. frisk doesn’t really deserve that kinda treatment. so i guess we’re here to stop you from killing them. sorry.” Sans stuck his hands in his pockets and stood next to Alphys, but in the moment before he did Flowey noticed the device he had stuck around one of his bony fingers.

Again with his sarcasm. “Killing humans is so, SO bad. Unless Asgore does it! Then it doesn’t matter if it’s kids, adults, whatever, so long as The Big Fluffybuns gets to TEAR THEM TO PIECES. That’s fine!”

Alphys shrugged, maintaining her calm smile. “Those aren’t really in our jurisdiction. They die in every timeline, unfortunately.”

Flowey sighed. “Jurisdiction. So not only are you time travelers, but you’re time cops.”

They both chuckled lightly. “sure,” called Sans.

“Are you gonna fight me or anything? Is this the part where you fight me?”

“we’re lovers, not fighters,” he said. Alphys giggled.

Flowey tilted his unimpressed head to the side. “I don’t get it.”

“I think it’d be best if me and Sans just… hung out here, for a little while. You know, to keep you from doing anything violent. We’re pretty aware that you’re capable.”

The famous Flowey was beyond irritated, but in his mind he was telling himself that he could afford to wait a little while. He didn’t- and couldn’t have- expected the new Alphys and Sans, but he was a little desensitized to time travel, and with Frisk’s power taken away, he at least had some time to wait.

“...Fine. Laze around all you want. Don’t tell anyone what you saw me do earlier, though! People like me here.” He snapped his head to the hyperventilating Alphys leaned up against her table. “You too! Remember when I watched seventeen hours of Mew Mew Kissie Cutie with you?! YOU OWE ME. Flowey was totally normal today, that’s what you say. Flowey also didn’t encounter two morons with a time machine, that’s ALSO what you say.”

“Okay!” she sputtered out in a half-moan and half-yell.

Flowey turned back to Alphys and Sans, who were struggling to help Frisk back to a standing position. “Oh, and I’ll be back for my human in a little while. So have fun while you can.” He descended back into the floor, and deep underground where he couldn’t hear the ensuing aftermath.

Frisk made it onto two feet with some assistance, rubbing their eyes and shaking with the weight of their own body. “Th-this is such a weird place.” They looked around, and noticed that everything in the Lab seemed about the same, save for the time travelers, who were both staring at Frisk with expectant, though friendly, expressions. “So you two are… clones?”

“more like alternates. from another ending.”

Alphys said, “You okay? How’s standing feel?”

The human tapped the floor for a moment. “Uh… I g-guess I can stand. Feels like I just lost part of my soul, or something.”

Alphys also said, from the other side of the room, “Technically you did. I mean, t-temporarily!” As soon as she did so, the trio turned their attention to her, and just staring at her alter-ego made her cower back into her space of petrification on the desk. She looked like she was going to explode.

“Hey, me, it’s gonna be okay! We’re not here to kill you and take your place, or anything.” Sans grinned wider. “Wanna help us get Frisk onto your bed?”

The horrified and frozen Alphys was eventually coerced into helping the limping Frisk up her escalator and toward the cube-shaped object, which, with a short tap of her fingers, instantly transformed into a twin-sized bed, which the human collapsed onto instantly. All the while, Alphys attempted to stay far away from the duo, in fear of--

“er, other alphys? not gonna damage the timeline just by being near us. that’s not how it works.”

“But you two are… a-are… oh my god.”

They looked good together. In fact, as Alphys stared at them top to bottom, her glasses nearly sliding off her snout, she realized very quickly just HOW good they looked together.

“Oh my god, are you two… t-together? Together, together?”

Alphys looked at Sans, and Sans looked at Alphys. They shrugged in unison, grinning wider than ever before.

Sans was a terrible romantic, really. In any other situation, with anyone else, he’d be doomed, forever left failing to take the burden of a relationship, because his affection only came when he felt it and not when he felt like faking it; Alphys asked for nothing but what he was. Alphys asked for Sans’ jokes and his laughter, and the moments of silence where he looked down and genuinely cared, and as time went on and as they got to know each other more and more, soon even the laughter was genuine and spoke in a language nobody else could decipher. Between puns they discussed time travel in a fever. Between bottles of ketchup Sans would take care of Frisk, Asriel and MK, who had become an unbreakable trio of friends, with the kind of spirit and calmness that shocked Alphys to the core. He joked with her for hours and arranged faux candlelit dinners not purely because it was funny but because they were hours he could spend with the Queen of the Underground. She didn’t have that title any more, but like every other person she had kept alive and sane for eight years, Sans still saw her as a leader, and at every moment she exhibited the same familiar signs. Alphys purely asked for Sans and he had not quite lost himself, and that was enough.

Of course they knew it was, in Alphys’ words, ‘odd’-- and they had reasoned that in any other ending, in any other timeline, her and Sans would be good friends at best, and they wouldn’t know each other’s pains, and might even get on fine by themselves. But he reminded her about Gaster, and all the months they had lost as scientists together, all the lost memories he would have kept secret forever. He was adamant that he would be worse off in any other timeline, and Sans was more thankful than anyone in the world. There wasn’t a moment that they doubted that they loved each other, and that it had been growing ever since the day they met in Grillby’s.

“S-So…”

New Alphys spoke up. “We wouldn’t really… recommend it, unless you’re as crazy as us. It’s kind of a special thing. We come from somewhere way, way far away where Frisk killed pretty much everyone.”

Old Alphys lost her breath instantly, staring at the human, who had nearly fallen asleep already. “Oh-- oh--”

“naw, it’s fine! most of them don’t do that.” Sans chuckled. “you’re not at frisk.” He struggled to carry New Alphys as she leaned on him, laughing loudly at his joke. The other one was completely unimpressed.

“Flowey said he made things good here, right? So you’re with… you ended up with…”

Old Alphys did her best to smile, in a slightly deformed way. “N-Nobody, really! Flowey told me it’s best if I learn to just love myself. A-And now that you’re here, uh, uh…” She scratched the back of her neck, hard. “WELL. It’s working pretty good, aside from that!”

“i hear that in most timelines, undyne adores you.”

“Adores me!” Alphys chuckled nervously and loudly in a series of long, drawn out ‘ha’s. “I told her I was better off completely alone doing science stuff in my lab, and that anime was a lie.”

“Ouch,” said New Alphys. “Harsh. I’m pretty sure she’d still forgive you, though.”

“R-Really?”

“Yeah! I mean, she forgave me for…” Alphys glanced at Sans, and he shrugged again.

“it’s worth a shot, other alphys.”

“Flowey t-told me… love’s overrated. I mean, it’s way more important that I improve as a scientist a-and get stuff done! Like this!” She brought up her hands, clenched her shoulder, and a sputtering collection of sparks emitted from her fingers. “I, uh… th-this thing on my arm assists the user at doing magic stuff! S-So people who suck at it, like me, can actually start to learn.”

Sans nodded slowly, impressed. “that’s not bad.”

“Still, you… don’t need to abandon relationships to do science.”

Old Alphys shrugged nervously. “It works for me! I’m happy actually making progress on things that don’t, uh…” She looked down. “Melt people.”

“Yeah,” said New Alphys. “I guess that’s a start. Hey, Sans, maybe we should go see, y’know…”

“oh, yeah.” He turned to the other Alphys. “do ya know where i am?” She stared at him blankly. “i mean, other me. the me that’s been here for more than five minutes.”

She nodded. “Him? I d-don’t really know him. I met him when Asgore, uh…”

“...Made you Royal Scientist? Yeah, I’ve heard this one before. He’s probably still in Snowdin, right?” New Alphys asked Sans.

“yeah. thanks for being predictable, me.” The duo both giggled for a while, but were suddenly interrupted by the weak voice of Frisk.

“H-Him and Flowey don’t get along,” they murmured.

“i figured.” He ruffled through his pockets as a gesture to Old Alphys. “i’ve got a phone. if flowey comes back here, call asgore’s number except the eight’s a three. if you make the eight a four, you’re gonna call other me. don’t call other me, it’ll be weird.”

“C-Can I call ‘other you’ after all this is over?”

“yeah, i guess. though, you should know that him and you used to be scientists together, for something like ten months, and then your memories got erased, so he might be a little… timid?”

Old Alphys stared at the two of them incredulously.

“Don’t worry, it was weird for me, at first. I started to remember a while back.”

She stiffened up a little. “Ten months… of… that I lost? What could even CAUSE that?!”

“how should we know? it’s your timeline.”

Alphys and Sans from another ending didn’t talk much after that, snickering to each other as they listed away from Old Alphys and Frisk; their heights were equal, their gaits were synced, every bit of them in harmony, and although Alphys was less active, she was more relaxed, and she wouldn’t have traded Sans for the world. They took a shortcut, and in an instant the world around them became snowy.

With the memory of the outside world still fresh in their minds, the two encountered Snowdin and were immensely surprised by how much warmer and calmer it was than they last remembered. The cavern ceiling gently let down snowfall until it collected, and then the snow would slowly melt in the middle months, and then back again. Since Alphys and Sans had witnessed the same cycle aboveground, though at a much faster pace, it was a nice change to have everything so… familiar. After the massacre, and the earthquake that was soon to follow, Snowdin was their way to get away from everything. Now, with the town packed full of eager souls- including his doppelganger brother- it felt like Snowdin was more homely and comfortable than ever before. The golden throne in the garden was nice to sit in, but Alphys was queen of Snowdin more than any other place, and Sans was its king. They avoided the town and headed into the forest, where the dark and shadowy trees acted as guard rails for even the most well-traveled of Monsters.

“you holdin’ up okay, al? that was kinda weird back there.”

“I think I handled it pretty well.”

“naw, i mean, you were ace. just the part about undyne. sorry if i talked too much.”

She giggled. “Don’t worry, alright? You know we’ve worked it out, the two of us. Back home, I mean.”

“still. you’ve said before that you still feel a little guilty.”

“A… little. But we only spent a month ‘together’, and she was smart enough to pick up that I wasn’t really into it. We’ve had eight years, Sans. I can move past awkwardness and guilt.”

“yeah. heh, i guess you’ve been through worse.” The image of Alphys struggling to sputter out an explanation about the Amalgamates to the entire Underground came to mind.

“We both have. The humans we…”

He quickly interrupted. “probably not the best casual conversation piece.” Alphys laughed.

“Probably not.”

They both climbed up a particularly steep hill, blanketed in a thick coat of snow which stuck to their clothes, which didn’t quite suit the weather. Alphys used magic to heat them, radiating in an aura that made the snow into a light slush and their clothes always-dry and warm. It was a temporary maneuver for a temporary time, but they didn’t plan on staying for very long.

“It’s weird. Flowey, being… liked? Famous?”

“seemed like he did pretty much what frisk did for us. solved everyone’s problems.” He thought back to Alphys’ lab. “in a roundabout sort of way.”

“Yeah, but… why?”

The curving, hypnotic structure of the path was deformed from Flowey’s endless, tireless travels and remodels, suited to his every need like a child with a plaything. He had learned every save and load how he liked things best, so he put everything in its right place every time, and now it was clear things had been like that for so long that the Monsters had gotten used to it. To the duo’s right was a tree with a hole in it, bent apart like a piece of clay, and it took them a moment to realize that in the distance they could see the open entrance to the Ruins, carving its way along the wall of Snowdin, where the forest finally ended, and where the path that was once straight over the river became a jumbled mess of slush, gravel and woods. Alphys and Sans hopped over a collapsed log and spotted, in the distance, Sans’ old guard post, right in front of where the massive doors used to be shut and sealed for what felt like forever.

Amidst the aura of warmth, the both of them jogged toward the rickety and poorly built shelter, and knew instantly they had come to the right place; although Sans had changed, his fondness for sleeping on the job had not, and he knew this part of the forest would give him the most privacy. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his admittedly thicker-than-usual jacket, concealing the ring around his bony finger, and the two of them approached Sans. Other Sans.

He laid back in his chair, slippers set up on the table of the post. It was a slow awakening, and Sans looked to find the two alternates standing in front of it, struggling to hold in laughter. He widened his grin, closed his eyes, and muttered, “am i dead?”

“yep. that makes two of us.”

“Wanna chat?”

Other Sans let his legs down and leaned forward. Although he was a skeleton, his eyes indicated that even with enormous amounts of time, he wasn’t sleeping much at all. “you wanna explain who you two are, first? i mean, i’m all for cracking jokes, but…”

“we’re time travelers.”

“We came here to stop Flowey from killing Frisk, I guess.”

His grin shortened. “the human? did you… succeed?”

“kinda. for now.”

“Maybe you could help us figure out what exactly’s going on with this timeline.”

“well. i haven’t really been sleeping much.” Other Sans leaned forward, and his eyes looked through them, staring at the snow as they squinted, and he didn’t need his eyes at all any more. “ever since flowey really started getting into gear, i haven’t been able to sleep. i mean, it’s been months. months and months, flowey’s the best person in the underground. he’s made everyone better and helped everyone, like he knows what to do for every single monster, like he’s done it a thousand times. but this is different for him. he’s not even letting me off easy.”

Sans nodded slowly. “he can reset, you know.”

“yeah. i guessed as much.”

“And… do you know who he is?”

He chuckled mockingly. “flowey the famous. asgore’s second in command. everyone’s best friend.”

“No-- I mean, who he WAS.”

“huh?”

“he’s the prince,” said Sans. “asriel. sans a soul, but that’s who he used to be.”

Other Sans was in disbelief, but tried not to show it. “and how exactly…”

“I kinda… w-well, it’s a roundabout thing. Experimented with Determination. Don’t give it to an inanimate object if there’s a remote possibility it has the dust of a dead person on it. Uh… in general, don’t experiment with DT.”

“heh. guess that explains how he got his ability.”

“But why’s he using it like this? Becoming… famous?”

He laid back, considering. It had never really needed an explanation. Flowey was sick, a sick horrible twisted thing with an uncanny fascination for his brother and a manic desire to make everything his way, and Sans never questioned a bit of it. “having no soul probably sucks.”

“flowey from our timeline can verify,” said Sans.

“maybe he wants seven souls so he can… be himself again. or whatever his deformed view of ‘self’ is, now. getting cushy with everyone is… just an added benefit.”

“So this is his last go around. He’s setting things up to be perfect.”

“pretty much, yeah.”

Sans looked down, quickly looking through everything he already knew. “it makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

Other Sans’ phone rang suddenly, shaking his jacket. Hesitating, since the conversation and the past six months had started finally making sense, he pulled it up to the side of his skull and answered it.

“Fl-Flowey came!” It was Alphys’ voice. “Flowey… uh, w-wait, is this the right Sans?!” Other Sans grinned wide. It had been a while since he’d heard her voice. “H-Hand me over to the Sans who’s, uh, with me! Other me!” In a flash, he did so, and at once both Sans chuckled in unison.

“you okay?” asked Sans. “you dialed the wrong--”

“I kn-know I did! Flowey burst in here a-as soon as you left and took Frisk. I sh-should’ve called earlier, but he was right there, a-and…”

“it’s fine. we’ll be right there.”

Alphys started, “Frisk…”

“only one way to find out.” He nodded to his doppelganger quickly, tossing him his phone, the exhausted skeleton settling back into a comfortable position at his post, and took Alphys’ hand, who shrugged.

Shortcut.

Alphys’ lab was torn from top to bottom, impaled with the force of something angry, furniture astray and the walls adorned with scratches; up the escalator to their left, a flustered Old Alphys sputtered out something unintelligible and pointed frantically at the front entrance. “N-No! He’s not HERE! He went to th-the Capitol with Frisk!”

Before they could even orient themselves in the room, already Sans was readying up for another teleport, clutching Alphys’ arm tight.

“Y-You sure? Another one, right after that?”

“i can handle it. just… remind me not to run any more. running sucks.”

Old Alphys shouted, “Please don’t hurt Flowey! H-He seems mean, sometimes, but he’s nice!”

Shortcut.

Sans and Alphys appeared in front of a crowd, shaking from the movement, suddenly staring as they appeared atop the steps in front of the Capitol, where Frisk had once stood in another ending. Monsters, so many she couldn’t count, lined up in rows beneath the steps, watching the lone microphone at the top. It was familiar-- too familiar. Instantly the two of them put on a satisfying grin that said, ‘We meant to do that!’ The massive swirling mass of Monsters looking at them seemed slightly pleased, and under the silent roar of them all, they sidled out of view. Sans started to run, but Alphys reminded him, hey, don’t tire yourself out even more. Escaping the view made them nauseous and by the time they reached the tunnels underneath New Home, just breathing was painful.

“that’s a lot of people,” sighed Sans.

“They’re waiting for him to get here. And these tunnels are the fastest way.”

They slipped from corridor to corridor, the winding maze of walls seeming to collide at every side, before they found somewhere suitable, the sound of the crowd far, far off. They stood suddenly, using the cool air as a handhold, and waited for the familiar shuffling of Flowey through rock.

“What’s the plan?”

“stop him from killing frisk.”

“How?”

“haven’t thought that far.”

Their breathing was audible.

Their breathing was loud.

It was sudden.

More sudden than anything anyone had ever seen in the Underground.

Vines, thorny and green and red, thin and quick, swung from above and caught the two of them by surprise, knocking them like tumbleweeds down the hallway, all in unison. From the darkness Flowey appeared, with Frisk not far behind, limp and half-dead.

He looked happy.

His rough and sharp grin was curled lacklusterly yet honestly, and his eyes were wide open and bright, fiery, optimistic. Alphys laid on the ground and struggled even to look, but she noticed that he looked so, so optimistic. His two lone leaves cupped into each other with glee, and the massive tendrils behind him did nothing to betray his demeanor. Flowey, without knowing it, looked happy. Impressed. Hoping he was impressive, at least. Sans struggled to a standing position-- they both did. In an instant, the flower in front of them cast something under his panting, glad breath, coiling metal around them in a cage.

“Sans, m-maybe one more shortcut,” she managed. “Get us outta here.”

He tried.

It didn’t work.

Flowey spoke, in disbelief with how enthusiastic he had become. “I’ve fought you a thousand times! I’m not just gonna-- let you run. This cage keeps it from working, your little talent.” He looked down, his red pupils shaking with the power he had just now encountered. “You two… don’t actually seem that bad. So I’m gonna let you live!”

“we know what’s happening, flowey. you can’t feel, but we’ve met a flowey just like you, and--”

“Just like me?!” He laughed, and his grin faltered for a moment. “I’m a good person. Was your Flowey a good person? I really appreciate the gesture, but I don’t need help. I have Frisk. And Asgore likes me-- he’ll let me see the rest of the souls. And then I can be free. And then I can be REAL.”

“You don’t need to do it this way!” called Alphys.

Flowey returned to his optimistic expression again. “I’ve tried every other way.

“I’ve been in the Underground so long I started to really, really hate everyone. So I hurt them.

“I hurt them because THEY made me this thing, they made me Flowey. They made me pathetic and weak and useless. They… kept me from being Asriel. Because HE-- He was all about feeling. And I couldn’t feel.

“But I realized that I don’t need to hurt them. It’s not their fault. They’ll be happy or sad no matter what, but Asriel can’t. That’s his fault. All of this is his fault, for taking Chara’s stupid idea seriously, all those years ago.

“I don’t need to be Asriel. I can be Flowey. I can be Flowey the Famous. I can be Flowey who changed, who really wants the Underground to be a happy place. And in a little while, I can be happy, too.”

Finally, after all those years, little Flowey looked optimistic.

Without hardly the strength to talk back to him, Alphys and Sans sat as best they could, their breath struggling to return. The cage pulsated with energy that sapped their own, keeping them just strong enough to live and speak, but it felt like they could do neither.

Frisk was dragged along like a doll. They struggled even to open their eyes, the tiny prick in their back still stinging, as their hair dragged along the stones, catching on rocks, bumping and collapsing. Flowey didn’t pay it a lot of mind, still stricken vertically with giddiness, as he made his way- slowly, savoring- to the Capitol. The winding hallways converged, and gray turned into gray, the endless cityscape before him, and the endless crowd before it. As they saw him the fame of Flowey preceded him, like it always did, and the massive rows turned into a megaphone, shouting his name and other indecipherable chatter, so loud it shook his very core, and only made his twisted grin wider. Frisk struggled, but the vines and thorns refused to let go, and so it was Flowey and the human up on top of the world, microphone at the ready, though his voice was probably capable of being loud enough.

“The Living Underground!” he called, and they called back a thousand times longer. “I told you I had a human. And here they are.” Flowey nodded gently toward the limp figure to his side, still enveloped in a mess of green and red. “The seventh soul. The last key to the door. To the Barrier. No Monster here isn’t aware of the power in this human, the power that we now have.”

Flowey was glad that Papyrus wasn’t there. He would be disappointed in losing a new friend. So was he-- Frisk wasn’t that bad of company. But it was a necessity. Necessity. Necessary.

“It’s necessary, even if unfortunate, that they must be struck down. The King has done this many times, and he has never gotten past the guilt. But for such a noble purpose… for the freedom of the Underground, we must.”

Again, the cheer. It was deafening even to him.

“From the beginning I have told you all that I only have your best intentions in mind. To see the ultimate end, the ultimate liberty, release from the bonds that keep us here, that has always been the goal. Six humans clumsily fell before this one, and once we’re done, no more need to die. This human’s sacrifice will be the last step in the road to peace. Peace that we have not known ever since the Great War separated us hundreds of years ago. We will live, whether far away or near to home, but as Monsters we will live. These moments- and all of you watching- will be remembered for lifetimes to come!” He lifted Frisk’s tired body up to his short flowerlike figure, and as the crowd erupted, he stared into their eyes. Half open. Nearly gone.

I’m sorry, he seemed to say. His own eyes stared down at the rocks, his maw closed slightly. If he had said anything it would have been lost in the noise.

“Flowey,” the Underground shouted.

“Flowey!” the Underground shouted.

The fame of Flowey roared from the cavern to the furthest reaches of the Underground, from the Capitol to Snowdin, from Flowey’s voice all the way to the King’s ears. Most of all the sound, the unending sound of a movement that could not any longer be stopped, travelled from the infinite crowd of many to the trapped Alphys and Sans, hearing their cry, hearing their chant.

It was a little worrying.

“well, at least we were right,” murmured Sans.

“K-Kinda. Just… too late.”

“way, way too late.”

“He has a p-point, though. Maybe… we can’t win ‘em all, you know?”

“this is literally our first attempt, al.”

“Ha.” She pronounced it. Laughing would take more effort. “I hope he ends up happy.”

The two of them stared at each other. The limpness and coldness reminded them of Gaster’s machine, and like every other reminder of the Underground that was, neither of them liked it too much. It was another ending where nothing was left except Frisk, and now every single thing was coming back to them in droves. Maybe they weren’t up to the idea.

“Still have… the time machine?”

Sans shrugged. “thought we agreed to call it ‘the thing’.”

“Oh, yeah. Still have the thing?”

“on my hand.”

“Could use it to go back, right?”

He stared around the metal surrounding them. “maybe. but the cage might block that, too. i’m kind of exhausted.”

“Yeah. I guess we can wait for him to come back.”

“Flowey,” the Underground shouted.

“Flowey!” the Underground shouted.

“wait no longer,” called a voice from further down the hall. Other Sans and Old Alphys didn’t light up around each other like the trapped pair did, but they had equal height and could pass off as being friends, so in the darkness and rocky vibrations of the tunnel, they seemed like a pair of lanterns.

“W-We figured you guys didn’t wanna die. Or… I figured, and then I t-told Sans, and he figured, afterward.”

Die.

Didn’t wanna die.

Alphys rung those words in her head for a second. The cage’s magic had left her delirious and all she could think about was those words, until Other Sans effortlessly tore the magic apart, freeing the duo who barely had the ability to stand.

“th-thanks, you two,” murmured Sans, grinning. The yelling outside grew more intense, building toward a crescendo that he knew would come soon enough.

Alphys stood frozen for a few seconds, before turning to the three of them. “Die. Didn’t wanna… S-Sans, what if we were right?”

“thought we established that already.”

“No, I mean-- right about everything. About DT. About… you, me and Gaster, theorizing, thinking, maybe we can create a soul. Something to open the Barrier.” She took a breath. It was becoming increasingly hard to stand. In front of her, both Sans and Sans raised their eyebrows. “I thought we must’ve messed up-- ‘cus of the Amalgamates. Figured I must have messed up, at least. And Flowey’s only alive b-because of Determination, right?”

“...yes?” answered Sans nervously.

“But he doesn’t have that any more! Frisk coming here, that removed his abilities. So he has nothing. He doesn’t have a soul, so he can’t feel. He doesn’t have Determination, so he can’t be alive.” She paused again, and giggled maniacally. “But he’s alive. He’s super, extremely alive, like any other Monster. He doesn’t have a soul, he-- IS a soul!” Her voice was equal parts insane and doubting.

Sans stood, and his grin said it all. He spoke anyways. “that’s the second weirdest thing you’ve ever said.”

“I know! A-And if you give me, like, six hours, I could totally explain it better.”

Old Alphys blurted out, “I made Flowey?!” but it seemed to go unheard.

“Flowey,” the Underground shouted.

“Flowey!” the Underground shouted.

Other Sans started, “you don’t have six hours.”

“Which is why we’ve gotta go and stop Flowey. Now.”

The scientist and the skeleton, the ones from another ending, who had passed equally ridiculous and naive ideas between each other a thousand times, stared, approached, and stared at one another excitedly. Just going through the motions. Safeguards.

“you sure? we might die in there.” He knew what she’d say.

“I’m sure.”

Sans took a step toward the entrance. “he looked happy. he wasn’t just feigning it because he was close, that was as genuine as i’ve ever seen Flowey get.”

Alphys took a step toward the entrance. “Optimism. That’s what it looked like. He was hopeful and sure that everything was gonna work out. That it already was worked out.”

Old Alphys and Other Sans called out in seeming unison, ‘what are we supposed to do?’

“just hang out. we’ll be back for ya. probably.”

The Underground was nauseating.

Like a boat it shook with Flowey’s name, his shadow against the living mass of Monsters so tall and so wide that it encompassed every corner of the world.

If you asked them, they would say his name.

If you asked them, they would say Flowey was saving the world.

His vines dug into Frisk’s skin, as he yelled. the phrase, “We’re going to be free.” The human struggled, tried to make a noise, but the boat rocked and the Underground shouted,

“We’re going to be free.”

“We’re going to be free!” he roared.

“We’re going to be free.”

“We’re--” Out of the corner of his eye, and with a light weight that came upon his petals, the short Flowey noticed Sans and Alphys in the entrance to the tunnel, so sick and weak that they struggled to stand, yet they leaned on each other’s shoulders, madly smiling like they’d done something incredible. He lowered his voice. “Why are you… there’s nothing here for you. It’s over. Go back to where you came from. I’m doing a thing, over here.”

Sans chuckled and looked down. His voice was weak, but amongst the silence of the parting waves, the Underground waiting for his call, it managed to be heard. “you seem happy.”

“I… seem happy? What kind of one liner is that?”

Alphys did the same as him, with the same level of grogginess. “You’re a Monster! You can die. You can live. You can…”

“Feel?! Is that how you’re gonna finish that sentence? I’ve…” He paused, and then decided he didn’t care what the audience heard. His expression grew exasperated, and his maw contorted to try and express the deep-set thing inside of him. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried for more years than there have been years. Nothing’s changed! Nothing’s changed.” Then he wasn’t looking at Sans and Alphys but at the ground, and thinking, and wishing. He was so close. So close.

“nothing’s changed?”

“That’s what I just said!” His frustrated tone reminded Sans a lot of Papyrus. He raised up a bony finger, the one with ‘the thing’ wrapped around it, and pointed at Frisk. “What’s--”

Frisk weakly booped him on the place where his nose would’ve gone.

“Oh. Heh.” He laughed. It was pretty funny and well timed, and his grin from earlier returned, optimistic as ever.

Then he stopped.

Wait.

Flowey retraced his steps. He looked down. His eyes widened. His mouth drooped open, twisted and sharp like the thorns on the tendrils beside him, utterly surprised. He looked at Frisk. He looked at Sans. He looked at Alphys.

Wait.

He looked at Frisk. He looked at Sans. He looked at Alphys.

“Wait.

“Hold on, did… did I just…”

The crowd didn’t know what to do. Somebody coughed in the distance.

Flowey laughed again.

And again.

Wait.

He looked at Frisk. He looked at Sans. He looked at Alphys.

“That’s not… b-but I don’t… but I h-haven’t…”

Frisk grinned.

“Why are you smiling? You’ve known me for less than three hours! I tried to kill you!”

Frisk tapped him on the forehead. Again. The kid took advantage of me again. Ha.

“Heh.”

The vines slowly drew back into the earth, the magic summoning them growing weaker with every breath Flowey took. He didn’t know what to do. Clumsily, as they untangled from the mess, Frisk knocked the microphone over, and it went tumbling down the stone steps. A few people in the Living Underground yelled about it.

“Aw. This is why I don’t like kids.”

Alphys and Sans limped over. Their gait matched perfectly, and by the time they were within stumbling distance, they both fell in front of the tiny, big-mawed flower, with red eyes that looked so tired and so relieved, and the human, whose entire body ached but not for lack of trying. There was no room to start arguing, so they didn’t.

“I don’t understand,” Flowey simply said.

“There’s a difference between a SOUL and, uh… a soul.”

“i’ve come to believe that if something’s spelled in all capital letters, that’s a bad sign.”

Alphys murmured, “What about stop signs? Those are in all capital letters, and they’re pretty good signs.”

Ha.

Flowey laughed again.

Wait.

He looked at Frisk. He looked at Sans. He looked at Alphys.

“al, you wanna spend the next six hours explaining what just happened?”

“I guess.”

The four of them lurched into the throne room. To the massive, all-encompassing crowd of Monsters, Flowey gave a lacklusterly, “Sorry-- human doesn’t have a soul, as it turns out,” and although they probably knew it was a lie, at least they wouldn’t be screaming their heads off any more. The emotion came very slowly, but when it came he looked incredulous, and his tiny face looked more and more surprised every minute. It was like the world had changed and he was still getting used to the effects. They gave a weak excuse to Asgore, sat in the throne room, and waited for their strength to come back.

Back again.

From a distance, from the corner of the garden, Asgore stared at the four of them huddled up in front of his golden chair. It was peculiar looking. A Royal Scientist, a Royal Guardsman, a human, and his most trusted friend, murmuring and chatting and giggling like they were just gathered to go on a playdate. The cool air from the openings in the roof of the cavern filtered in and filtered out effortlessly, and carried with it an infinitely soothing calm.

It took two hours to explain, until Flowey started to accept the idea. As though broken and repaired thousands of times, his emotions were- in his words- ‘clunky’. They came seemingly at random. But as he practiced, and as the four of them talked without end, slowly they started to make sense again.

He laughed… because.

He grinned… because.

There was no logical reason to it any more. He had prepped the Underground to be perfectly logical, for every single moving part to make him happy or laugh again, but now it just took a couple of stupefied time travelers.

“Sorry for making you a flower,” repeated Alphys.

Flowey’s half-toothy expression perked up. “Really, it hasn’t been that bad. Lot better than being dead, I’ll tell ya. Being dead is crummy.”

“Really?” asked Frisk. “I remember it being kind of… dreamy.”

“Dreamy,” he murmured. “Yeah, that works.”

“so we’ve gone over dead timelines and evil frisks. what’s left to cover, al?”

“Did we… talk about the Barrier?”

Flowey nodded hesitantly. “You got six souls, and everyone in the Underground, and then…”

“It was kinda hand wavey. It involved you turning into Asriel temporarily, or something.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” said Flowey.

Frisk laid back against the throne with a sound and light thump. “So you two… can’t time travel yourselves back here after you go?”

“well, it’s not time travel, really. just moving between timelines. time travel is literally impossible, so you don’t wanna do that. if we come back, there’s a chance something will get messed up.”

“But don’t rule it out, OK? Just… probably not daily, or anything.” Alphys grinned.

The garden wavered a little, silent but for the brushing of petals against petals.

Flowey said, “Hey, what happened to Sans and Alphys? I mean, the… native ones. The ones from this timeline.”

“i guess they’re still waiting for us in the tunnels. heh.”

Alphys grinned. “Suckers.”

The goodbyes were quick, sudden. There weren’t a lot of people to say it to. Just Other Sans and Old Alphys, still stationed in the tunnel right where they had left them.

She laid in a corner, napping.

He brightened up when the two of them approached.

“thought you might’ve failed. where were you two?”

“Throne room,” said Alphys.

Other Sans tilted his head. “that’s a minute’s walk from here.”

Sans shrugged. “we were busy.” His counterpart chuckled in response, sizing the both of them up. His eyes remained squinted and nearly gone, like even a moment of sleep would be heaven, but he seemed to refuse even that opportunity to take siesta.

“so… do you two…” He paused. Sans and Alphys grinned. “bone?”

Sans started, “i--” but Alphys immediately interjected.

“He’s my pillow prince, and I do all the moving.”

He chuckled. “there’s not much to it.”

“well,” said Other Sans, “you seem pretty good together, anyway.” He glanced down at Old Alphys, who had her jaw hung open, completely unrelenting to the elements. “probably won’t ever have that with her.”

“No, but… you don’t have to abandon it completely, just because she’s missing some memories.”

“huh?” He looked up.

“al forgot, too. same deal, happens in most timelines. i started again and it worked out.”

Alphys said, “It’s hard. Feels like there’s no way it’ll ever make sense again-- I’ve been there. But… your timeline’s Alphys makes pretty good new friends. For an introvert, at least.”

“try meeting her again,” said Sans.

“She’s a wreck.”

Other Sans stood shakily. His bones were numb from exhaustion, and the cold and dark of the tunnel had led him to start believing nobody was ever coming back. He stared around, grinning, facing Alphys and Sans, and then Old Alphys, curled up and unaware, and then back. “so are you two gonna leave, now?”

“Yeah.”

“try not to get yourselves killed,” said Other Sans.

The goodbyes were quick, sudden. Only Flowey and Frisk were left, in the throne room, struggling to explain to Asgore what had just happened while Alphys and Sans entered. The King immediately retracted, but the duo gave him a reassuring look as they prepared to leave.

Flowey’s grin was weak. Maybe he was tired. He didn’t remember what tired felt like, yet. His stem simply lacked power that it had an hour ago. But it felt OK, and the fact that it felt was what mattered.

“You think you’re gonna be able to explain the whole story to everyone?” asked Alphys.

“Of course,” said Flowey. “They’ll listen. They love me. I’m famous, remember?”

“hopefully that’s enough.”

Frisk perked up and spoke. “Me and him agreed we’re not going to reset any more. Since it seems pretty exhausting for people. Plus, dead time stuff.” Deja vu. At least that meant Flowey was equally capable of being mindful.

“i think sans is gonna appreciate that.”

“I think they all will,” said Alphys.

Sans reached into his pocket, and then quickly remembered that their method of exit was still tight around his index finger. He brought it out, showed it to Alphys, and the both of them nodded. Frisk started smiling and Flowey kept smiling, but he grew exasperated suddenly. As he spoke, he struggled to restrain himself. “Thanks for coming. You… well, you’ve helped a lot.”

They looked at each other, mulling over pride. “hope you get your happy ending.”

“Well, from your point of view, this is the end, right?” Flowey grinned. Alphys nodded at him slowly, her eyes lighting up, as she grasped Sans’ hand.

“see ya,” he said, and Alphys waved in unison. A bright light flashed.

Shortcut.


	6. The Kills of Chara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year and a half ago, a girl named Chara tried to end the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For context on the setting, read The Kills of Chara (aka DFtale) that I also made: http://imgur.com/a/o1u6k

Asriel whispered, “I want to forget you so badly.”

The spring wind carried it above Chara’s grave, and it slipped away before he even knew what he had said. Amidst tears he leaned on the tombstone, weakly looking on, staring at the rolling, endless green hills in the distance. With every movement of the air, grass wavered, in perfect disharmony, all past his range of vision. The sky looked like an oil painting, smooth white against murky grayish-blue, but it felt harsh and terrible. He had been to this spot before, and every time he did, it reminded him of the Edge of the World, and he couldn’t help but get nauseous and think about her. He had come here so many times, whispering curses, whispering remembrances, whispering to her for a long time. Then he would whisper to the other voices, the ones he had no idea existed, and then he would scream at them, and then he would settle back into his position, leaning against the stone as he watched the green waves of the missing ocean.

With the sun directly overhead, only Asriel cast a shadow, and the grave was purely bright. He was the only thing really here, the only thing in a mile radius that could make any difference or impression besides the wildlife. This had been the kind of place Chara had always wanted to spend time with him in, aboveground, sitting on a blanket and eating sandwiches as they watched the calmness move. She had described endlessly the beauty of the surface, and the two of them would watch the ceiling of Waterfall alternate colors and lights, imagining that it was a star-filled sky instead. Nobody but Asriel felt the need to bury Chara, for she was nothing but a husk and Monsters only saw dust as an indicator of death. She was nothing but a husk of the demon who had nearly ended the world, and he whispered that, too, and the apparition of her loomed above the grave, whispering back. He said, “This is the kind of place that doesn’t get a lot of visitors.” It was apologetic, yet he knew Chara would appreciate, in some way, the isolation.

“Do you think they can still hear what I’m saying? Do you think they’re there at all? You seemed so sure, Chara. That they were listening, watching, egging you on. But you only heard Partner, that was your only proof. Did Partner tell you they were there? I’m telling them everything, I’m ending the story. So what happens now? Does Partner die, too, just because its job is done?”

His hands shook. Unfamiliar with so much, unfamiliar with being himself, still. “I’ll come back sometime.”

The air was cold and gusty, so Asriel stuck his hands and arms into his light jacket, which was too big for him, and started down the rocky path in front of Chara’s grave. For a mile in every direction nothing could be seen but the gray stone with her name on it, and that was the only way he had convinced them to give her a proper burial. Everybody needed somebody to blame, and for them it was Chara, Chara who murdered them all.

But I know the truth, he thought. I know it was you, Partner.

Yet as he spoke he knew nobody was listening, and yet as he spoke he was rapidly leaving the nonexistent earshot of his faux sister, and yet all of it converged and suddenly he was dopey and lazy and his walk became off balance because nobody was watching. He kicked a stone from the path and it tumbled off, trampling blades of grass before finding a stopping place in between two raised parts of land. Asriel thought to himself, that’s another one. Another rock kicked loose. Nobody comes here but me, and I don’t need the stones to find my way back.

The Edge of the World was here. It was here only a year ago, and only a year ago he was standing where her grave was, staring at a mound of gray and screaming endlessly, screeching and whimpering, and his voice ran out, and now he was back, and now he was free.

Asriel reminded himself that he was free, and that everyone was only a mile away, and the walk would only be twenty minutes.

There was something hard to describe about the surface of the world after Chara’s actions. A silence was everywhere, invading and taking space, silence that wasn’t calm like silence was supposed to be. Swirling and amassing in the air was the very lack of everything, an anxiety, a nervousness that Asriel hated and had come to feel every day. Slowly shuffling, quickly shuffling, knocking loose pebbles and getting stuck on upturned greenery now and then. By the time fifteen minutes had passed he could already see the collection of buildings that was Home, stacked on top of each other in their strange designs. At least, strange to him. Varieties of wood and glass, massively different shapes and sizes, all formed together so randomly that it seemed surreal. So different to the rigidly designed and orderly stone houses in the Capitol of the Underground that it never really felt like ‘Home’, even if that was what they started calling it. In Asgore’s honor, of course. Everything, those days, was in Asgore’s honor.

For the King.

You’ll be the new King someday, Az.

Finally, you’ll have your throne.

Through Partner’s words Chara spoke, and it rung in his ears, and he clenched either side of his head lazily as if it would do anything, like he did constantly when alone, until he wasn’t alone and it was Toriel on the porch of their home, leaning against the deck.

“Azzy,” she said. “Where did you go?”

“Just needed some air,” he murmured.

“For forty minutes? Come on in, you’re probably freezing.”

Asriel shrugged and hopped onto the wooden steps. His mother had been looking sleep deprived for days, and he hadn’t asked about it. Her smile was warm, and although full of concern for him, she managed to hold back from running up to engulf him in a hug. “Could you let me know next time you head out?”

“It was just an impulse thing. You were on the phone, didn’t wanna get in the way.”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “Nothing’s more important to me than you. Do not worry about it, okay?” Toriel had learned that his demeanor after coming back was drastically different. He was calm, though half-full of anger which he never let out, not even for a peep, and he didn’t respond to the things he used to. In her eyes Asriel had aged so much in such a short time, and yet she thought it was possible that she simply wasn’t capable of keeping care of a child by herself. “Frisk’s up in your room. Pie alright tonight?”

“Pie? It’s Tuesday, though.” He leaned against a wooden beam holding the deck in place.

“Well, I figured it’d be a fun surprise.”

Asriel beamed. “That... sounds pretty great right now, actually. Thanks, Mom.”

He swung open the front door just halfway, glancing back. Toriel gave him a reassuring grin, nodding, and he nodded in response, sliding in before it shut behind him, and was prepared to head down the hall toward the stairwell when he noticed Papyrus and Sans waiting for him.

“hey, kid,” said Sans. He seemed unsure.

Papyrus said, trying not to shout, “You’re back! We have been waiting!”

Asriel tilted his head to the side a little.

Sans took a short step forward, and his eyes held little confidence, but without thinking he started, “can ya help us find your dad?”

The room went a little chill. Asriel’s hands shook gently, and he stood with an expression that could easily kill. He bit the bottom of his lip, staring deep into Sans’ soul, and asked “What?” with vitriol.

Quickly, Papyrus stepped forward, and slammed his bony hand on Sans’ shoulder, who froze up from the shock. “Ha! HA. I told you not to start that joke, brother! It’s INCREDIBLY rude!”

“J-Jesus, Sans, what were you even… what was that supposed to be?”

The short skeleton’s petrified look quickly attempted to morph into a more casual tone. “sorry. lead-in for a joke, like pap’s saying. really bad idea. my bad, kid.”

Asriel took a short and sharp sigh. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t react to stuff like that anymore. It’s been a year.” He started down the hall past their statue-like forms, and scrambled up the stairwell before they could say another word.

Sans tapped at the floor with his slipper, waiting for the footsteps to grow distant, and then turned to Papyrus, leading the both of them into the adjacent living room, which was empty. “thanks for the save, bro.”

“Save? I assumed you WERE joking! You were, weren’t you?”

He grew a bit incredulous. “why would you assume that? i mean, besides the obvious fact that i’m usually joking.”

“...You mean you and Alphys didn’t see? The big blue monitor clearly said that Asgore was dead in this timeline!” Papyrus spoke very matter-of-factly, and yet it struck pretty hard into Sans’ bones. He recoiled a little, and then looked down at the floor.

“we… should probably check those more closely.”

“For a couple of time cops, you two are EXTREMELY clumsy!”

From an entranceway came Alphys’ voice, calling as quietly as would still be heard, “Hey, I can hear you two from all the way outside.” She slipped in clutching a bundle of computers and devices, stumbling over and trying to stay inconspicuous. “If you’re gonna talk about time travel, could you at least keep your voices down? We’re supposed to be undercover, right now.” Sans stared at her, still a bit starstruck from Papyrus’ reveal. “...What?”

“turns out this timeline isn’t as good as we thought.”

“Well, duh. Seven billion humans are dead.”

“and one monster.”

She tilted her head. There was a lot of head tilting going on, recently. In response, Papyrus tilted his head to fit in.

The trio talked as they headed out one of the back doors in the house, waiting until they were a sufficient distance away before Alphys wrapped her arm around Sans.

“So he’s been dead… a year?”

Papyrus said, staring at the two of them, “It really was obvious if you were paying attention! I just must wonder what would have possessed somebody to hurt such a nice person.”

“judging by the way everyone here talks about chara, i’d say that they did it. along with nearly annihilating the human race.”

Alphys shrugged slowly and took a deep, long breath. “One kid, doing all that? That’s kind of hard to believe. They were humans-- not Monsters. Humans kill humans physically, not emotionally.” Her mind immediately shot to the image of the wrought iron trident, the one that made her resemble a human in its nature, the one that, even in the wrong hands, could do so much harm. Quickly she erased the thought.

“well, chara’s dead now. so whatever danger the machines were trying to tell us about, it probably isn’t that.” He paused and rubbed against Alphys’ side. In order to keep up appearances as their alter egos, they had been apart for longer than was whatsoever normal. Slipping into the roles wasn’t too complicated-- Other Alphys, Sans and Papyrus went going on a road trip further north, and then the trio took their place, claiming they had cancelled. They hoped it would last long enough to find the problem in the timeline. “what do your readings say, al?”

She coughed, and pulled out one of the pieces she’d shoved in her lab coat. “Uh… barometric pressure’s different.”

“which means…?”

“We’re certainly in a different place than back home.” She turned around and he followed; Papyrus missed the cue and kept walking for a little while longer.

Sans chuckled. “well, duh.” The area surrounding to the big house at the corner of town was as empty as could be, treeless and green for miles and miles around. It swirled and waved like a discolored ocean, and in the center of it all was familiarity, where the two of them knew the layout perfectly.

“It’s weird,” said Alphys. “Same house. Same everything. Yet everyone here moved away from Ebott. I guess they just didn’t like it as much as we did.”

“bad memories?”

Papyrus realized that their voices were growing distant, and hurried back. “They can’t even take a twenty minute walk back to Snowdin like we can! The other version of me is probably a wreck! This place is a BORING temperature, unlike Snowdin.”

“pap, the last time you went back home was, like, two months ago, our time.”

“THAT YOU KNOW OF!” he shouted.

Sans and Alphys slowly turned to him, surprise on their faces, before the two burst out laughing together. “bro, i had no idea you were sneaking out! don’t ya think that’s ‘ebott’ cold of you, not to tell me?”

“I am a functioning big bones, Sans. Not a baby bones any more, but BIG BONES.”

“yeah, yeah. sometimes i forget that.”

Alphys resumed where she had left off. “The house isn’t radioactive, and there isn’t an earthquake currently going on. Which is… probably good.” Sans chuckled.

“maybe we’ve just gotta stay and wait to find the problem.”

“I just hope we can keep these people safe,” said Alphys.

“yeah,” said Sans.

The three of them stared at the house at the corner of town, sturdy as it had withstood time and endless changes, yet it felt like the single whack of a hammer could bring it crumbling down.

Asriel peered back, but through the dusty upstairs window, his eyes weren’t visible from the other side. Alphys, Sans and Alphys chatted and laughed and held each other with the familiarity and oddity of an entirely different trio. He laid on the windowsill, his shoulders aching at the odd positioning, but something kept him watching.

“Wonder what they’re talking about,” he said.

Frisk, who was behind him rummaging through their closet, asked, “What?”

“The three of them. They’re just standing there and looking at the house and laughing. It’s really, really weird.”

“Three of who?”

“Alphys, Sans and Papyrus.”

In response, Frisk shrugged and walked over, holding a stack of notebooks and dropping them on the bed beside the window. “They cancelled their trip. Maybe they’re just planning another one.”

“I’m just…” He sighed. “Getting anxious.”

“Hey. Remember? We’re trying to do less of that.”

“I guess it’s not even about the three of them. I, uh… went to her grave again.” He unhinged from the sill and leaned back against the bed and wall, facing Frisk.

“...another thing you should be doing less of. What were you there for?”

“Talking to them.”

“Partner, or…”

Asriel shrugged. “The ones watching.”

Frisk hopped over next to him, and her hand wrapped around his. “Nobody’s watching, Azzy. You can’t believe everything she said, OK? Chara was delusional.”

“I was just saying goodbye, anyway.” He rubbed one of his dry eyes. The house felt like it was in a drought. He turned to look back out the window, and kept his eyes planted on the three. “Don’t need to go out there any more.”

“And you shouldn’t.”

Alphys peered around the yard behind the house, and then immediately gave Sans a peck on the forehead. The two started laughing, and Papyrus joined in. Asriel immediately took a mental note of the event. Something was very, very wrong. Sans was never the type to be so careless with his jokes-- in fact, where everyone encouraged him to move on from Asgore’s death, the little skeleton seemed to be the only one left who was taking it slow. Which was a relief. The three outside were certainly not the same three who had left on the trip; Alphys was with Undyne, and Sans wasn’t the type to ever get on romantically. So Asriel, right then, decided he needed to figure out what was really going on.

“You wanna do anything tonight, get your mind off stuff?” asked Frisk. “Monopoly? Er, no, that’s a group thing, everyone’s too busy. Could see if that Counter Strike LAN’s on tonight. Remember, the one all those kids from the city started running? Few Monsters there, too. Could be fun.”

“Eh,” said Asriel. “Mom’s making pie tonight. I don’t really wanna miss it.”

“Mom’s making pie? Cool.” Frisk grinned, primarily to try and calm him down. “Yeah, we can stay home. Just don’t know what to do before then.”

The trio outside eventually drifted from their spot in the back, approaching the house, separating and getting back into character. Asriel formed a smirk. “You can play Monopoly with five players, right?”

“...Yes?”

“Then that’s what we’re doing tonight,” he announced.

Although their intentions were to stay low profile, Asriel’s reassuring tone convinced the three of them to join in his self-described ‘honest Monopoly game. Casually, I promise.’ Of course the tradition in the home was nothing casual and such a description was nothing more than an in-joke between Asriel and the rare opponents who occasionally dared to pull out the pieces and attempt to- uselessly, of course- surmount the unbeaten champion. Alphys, Sans and Papyrus had never before agreed to play with him, and even Frisk struggled not to look confused at their willingness. Asriel assured her that it was part of the plan. He also assured her that there wouldn’t be any need for the electronic dice roller, and that physical dice would do fine, much to her dismay.

“I never beat you even with digital dice,” she whispered. “You’re gonna floor them. It’s gonna be a massacre.”

“Maybe,” he whispered back.

For a game primarily based around exchanges and money, all the players could focus on were the dice rolls. Frisk was the first to go bankrupt, of course; every time they played Monopoly with physical dice, all Asriel needed to do was manipulate the little cube with telekinesis to get optimal results. Against a human, whose magical capacity was little to nothing, the Boss Monster won each time. Against formidable competition, players vastly more skilled in magic- Undyne, Toriel, Gerson- there was, at least, a semblance of strategy. Frisk played through almost every game, if only to spend time with Asriel.

“I wish to CUT my LOSSES,” announced Papyrus, his funds almost completely drained. “I take my money and leave the human town to build an ENTIRELY NEW MT. EBOTT!”

Asriel chuckled. “Either you win, or you lose. The money goes to the bank if you forfeit, Pap. You forfeiting?” Frisk, the dealer, grinned and prepared to take the money from his end of the table.

The tall skeleton leaned forward, doing his best to look menacing. “I’ve robbed banks before, Flowey! The human cannot keep my funds from me.”

“...Flowey? What?” asked Asriel. Alphys gulped, and Sans would have gulped, if not for his lack of throat. But Papyrus quickly came up with another lie. In some ways, his ridiculousness made it easier to believe him; Sans considered that his brother might actually be capable of deceit.

“Your code name! In case we have to run from Frisk and communicate in a secret language.”

“he takes this stuff pretty seriously,” joked Sans, leaning back in the chair. “nobody’s gotta get hurt. just let my bro take the monopoly money.”

Frisk shrugged, smiling further. “Sure. But here’s the deal. Next time we play, that’s your buy-in. So you’ll be starting handicapped.”

“Yes,” said Papyrus, sounding devious. “But until then, I have SUCCEEDED.”

Sans was probably the most magic-tuned Monster at the table, being capable of things most only dreamed of, but he refrained from altering the dice rolls whatsoever, finding more entertainment in watching Alphys and Asriel gradually increase their competitive spirit. He watched as they exchanged and bartered and maneuvered while he slowly plopped down houses and hotels in the first two properties and neglecting every other space until he began to lose every last dime. His reasoning was, “the streets are right next to my house. why go through the effort of going any further?” It sounded enough like himself that Asriel wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

Alphys’ strategy wasn’t quite up to snuff, at least by Asriel’s standards. She bought only half the things she landed on, and she was doing her best to spread property throughout the board, instead of grouping together. Over time he realized her plan and stopped making trades and deals entirely, but with every roll of the dice, he was getting the short stick. Sans and Alphys had visited a total of four other timelines as de facto time police, and hadn’t yet come across a necessity to play competitive Monopoly, but she was smart enough to realize that the dice could be manipulated with a bit of telekinesis. His talent clashed with hers, and not for one moment did either opponent rip their eyes away from the board, but as Asriel continued to land his piece on her spaces time and time again, and as she continued to narrowly miss every one of his long, terrifying rows of hotels, the winner became clear.

After a thirty minute game, only Sans was still awake, egging Alphys on. Finally the Boss Monster in the chair across from her laid down his cash into the bank and declared that he’d lost.

Disbelief.

That was the only thing on his mind.

He said, “To most humans, Monopoly is almost entirely based on luck. But in reality, it’s a very accurate way of measuring great magical power.” Suddenly the game didn’t feel like a game any more, and Alphys looked up from the board she was putting away, pausing. “Power that… well, it runs in Boss Monsters, and a couple old members of the Royal Guard. The strongest users in the entire world. So it’s weird that somebody who’s been completely incapable of magic for the past--I dunno, twenty years?--beat me by altering dice rolls. With magic.” Asriel’s voice indicated more incredulity than his words described.

Alphys and Sans froze a bit. Papyrus froze, purely because he was napping in his chair. The two looked at each other quickly, deliberating, their eyes communicating lightning-fast in a silent way that only made sense to them. They turned back as he continued. “What IS with you two? You’ve been acting completely insane for the past day!”

She started, “I, uh… we probably should tell him.”

Asriel took a deep breath. Sans closed his eyes and spoke. “we… actually might have made it to where we were going. on the road trip.”

“...What?” he asked.

“we’ve been working on a machine to… eh, it’s not important. a machine that required a power supply we could only find in a workshop up north. we were going to set it up and try it there. lo and behold, we hop in the--” He deliberated. “--car, and suddenly it’s a day later. none of us remember what happened.”

“Memory loss? What would’ve caused that?”

“no idea, kid.”

Alphys immediately picked up where he left off. “Seems like in doing that, our brains got a little… jumbled. Memories, emotions, stuff like that. And magic.” She grinned. It was, for all intents and purposes, honest. When she’d lost everyone in the Underground she was pathetic and weak, and yet an unending surge of power came through her as Grillby’s burned, and ever since that day she had known exactly how to harness her soul’s power to a great magnitude. She reckoned it might have just been Sans’ presence, since the two hardly left each other’s sight anymore. “It’s random, on and off. Figured I’d try and use it to win the game for once, but… well.”

“Any idea why it’s on and off? Maybe your soul got… jumbled, too.”

“I was meaning to go see Doc Seez. You know, the specialist in soul medicine? She could take a ‘loox-seez’ at it.” Sans muffled a loud laugh in his jacket. Suddenly their lie became natural and easy to tell.

“hey, thought you forgot about her.”

Alphys shot him a quick look that said, ‘not now.’

Asriel looked down, considering. The kiss on the forehead. “But what about… I saw you two…”

“i mean, our brains were messed with. who knows what happened? anything could’ve happened.”

“Anything.” Alphys affirmed. “We really probably should get checked out tomorrow, considering that it’s kinda made a mess of things.” Tomorrow bought them a little more time, at least.

Finally, Frisk interjected. “Hey, at least it was an informative game of Monopoly! Usually these end with somebody getting mad at Azzy.”

Asriel shrugged. “Was me getting mad this time. Sorry. I guess I get why you guys kept it secret.” Personally, Alphys and Sans had no idea why he was believing their story, but there wasn’t a lot of space or time to count their blessings. They began to pack up the game, joking with the Boss Monster. Papyrus woke up and they explained the ordeal, and nervously he agreed that his ‘bones were EXTREMELY rattled’. The three drifted away from the table and situation as best they could, and Frisk went upstairs to ‘get some stuff ready’, and Asriel went to the closet to put the box away.

As it did when he was alone, the unnerving and uneasy feeling in his gut arose again, pounding and pulsating. A being of magic was always capable of intuition, the kind indescribable, and right then his intuition continued to point at the three oddities. He knew without knowing that they would be the bulk of his problems for the next few days, and yet that was a reassuring thought. Asriel could handle Alphys, Sans and Papyrus. But the terrifying feeling wasn’t dulled.

“Az,” said someone.

He turned back to the dining table. Papyrus must’ve dropped a piece of paper money on his way out, as it laid on the very center of its wooden surface. Asriel just stared.

They said, “It’s as it should be.”

Asriel lunged toward the table and snatched the dollar from its place, panting, the voice bouncing off either side of his skull and jittering, and the creaking and speaking of the house faded completely. He stared wide-eyed at the strip of paper in his hands, and the rattling in his head increased, and he couldn’t make out the number on it. No, he could. No number. It read,

“Thanks for always doing this. I always enjoyed reading them.”

“It made me want to start playing again, even if I do feel kind of bad about it now.”

“Must say I never expected anything more than death and sorrow. Feels strange for it to finally be over.”

His hands shook and he lost grip on the paper. He recognized the messages; every month he heard them, every month he saw them. Praise for Partner. Frisk didn’t believe him when he described the visions and the noises, when he went on and on for hours about the voice who had lead Chara into the grave and who had really hurt all those people, who was hanging over her shoulder and threatening to bite down and take control. His vision blurred worse than it ever had. The lights dimmed.

Asriel struggled to get his bearings. On a hill, for sure. The sky glimmered a murky green and boiled up with clouds. In the distance he saw a town full of humans working and functioning and living, and at the forefront in front of rows of unending peaks, a stone throne on a mound of rocks. So far away. He had landed in Partner’s game, the place where he had seen seven billion people die in the blink of an eye.

“hey, kiddo,” said Sans.

He shivered from the cold and turned to face the source of the voice.

“you know things aren’t as good as they look, right?”

“Alright, Partner,” started Asriel. “What’s this supposed to represent? What’s the big joke, here, the metaphor? What kinda thing are you trying to push on me by putting Sans here?”

“i was just hoping you’d trust your friend more. you do, right?”

He shrugged, struggling to bury himself into the ground, the wind trying its best to kick him off balance.

“heh… but they’re not your friends. when the opportunity arises, you’d best leave them behind.”

“Who are you talking about?”

Sans lowered his head. In the half light it was hard to make out his eyes, and out of all of the things in the world around him, Asriel saw Sans as the only real thing, and he struggled not to lose sight as the vision slowly tore away, as it always did, eventually. A piece of ground next to him ripped open like a section of cloth, stabbed, thrashed violently with all the anger that she had had, that she still possessed and was trying to burst from its place in his own weak soul. He lurched toward Sans.

“Who?” he repeated.

“c’mon, kid,” said Sans. “come closer. i need your help.”

Asriel limped another step forward. “I just want to have a life again, Partner. I want to forget you. I w-wanna forget everything.”

“closer, az.”

“Please. Let me go.”

Then, it was over. In an instant he was sitting at the dining room table, his face laid down against a set table that Toriel had managed to arrange while he was unconscious. Waking up was far from jarring, and he simply sat upright in the chair, waiting for his faculties to arrive back to him.

Undyne shouted and cackled madly as she lifted Alphys off the ground, who was unable to dodge the pucker she landed on her face. In her peripheral Sans shrugged, and she shrugged, too. They had already prepared for this, but it still felt uncomfortable. “You’re such a NERD, staying downstairs and doing stuff. I was right upstairs! We could’ve watched ALL the anime.”

She pushed herself down gently, her grin forming and growing unsure. “I’m, uh… sorry. Th-There’s this thing...” Alphys struggled to stutter. She’d managed to keep the anxiety off for days, but for the sake of their cover, she imitated that sorely nervous voice and demeanor, the kind she had started to get past around Sans and his warm, cold hands. “I j-just need a little s-space for right now, OK? And then we can hang out a-and watch tons of stuff together.”

Sans and Papyrus messed with the utensils at the table, joking and laughing accordingly. As Toriel walked in she grinned at the two of them, holding a modest snail pie, and she set it on the center of the table for the Monsters to take slices from. Dreamily, Asriel, struggled to cut through it with the attached kitchen knife.

“This… thing? You wanna talk about it, Al?” asked Undyne.

Alphys took a small step back toward the table, looking down. “I’ll tell you later.” It felt inherently wrong to take the place of somebody else, and the best she could do was reduce the time they spend together that would become null and void once her, Papyrus, and Sans left. So she attempted to display as little affection as would still pass as normal.

Undyne lowered down and grinned wide, her expression weakening. “Alright. But I’m here anytime. You gonna stay for dinner?”

Alphys said, uneasy, “S-Sure.”

So the house settled, and Asriel looked and felt unsettled.

All Sans could do was watch. He sat across from the Boss Monster whose story he still barely knew, and who he could only offer lies about their reasons for acting strangely. Asriel stared at the table and the pie and nibbled at it, just enough that nobody would take note, least of all his mother, just enough that nobody would notice his lack of hunger and shaky hands and unheard, ethereal staring around at Alphys, Sans and Papyrus. They’re not your friends. They seem like your friends, but they’re not your friends. Instantly Asriel knew what the dream was trying to say. And-- maybe it was just a dream, he thought. A delusion. They all say it’s a delusion.

They all say, it’s been a year.

They all say,

and then she says,

“That’s all it’s gotta be, Az. Nothing more.

“You really think this is gonna hurt you forever?

“You really think you’re gonna regret one little death, one COMPLETELY insignificant human?!

“I’ve done all the dirty work, Az.

“I did all of this!

“Show me you’re not useless.”

Worthless little Azzy. Az. Sitting in his chair, terrible king. Could have prevented so much pain and death if he’d just killed her a day sooner, a month sooner. When the game first began she was already weak enough, already distracted enough. He couldn’t count on two hands the number of times Chara had slept in front of him, vulnerable, easy…! He couldn’t count on two hands the number of times he had failed, and the number of times that Asriel, little crybaby, could have saved them all.

So he was supposed to be fixed by now. So he had changed, and over a year he had changed, and somehow he hadn’t forgotten Partner over Chara’s shoulder after so long, against all odds, and although things were different, he still questioned if they were fine, and never before had Sans appeared in his daydreams. And Sans at the table looked so different.

Subtle things.

Perhaps if he were in the form of a skeleton, he could point out exactly how Sans had aged, but his magic at least allowed the general idea. Him and Alphys gave each other a look in the smallest bits of time, and they were both staring at Papyrus, attempting to keep down his uproar even more than usual. They spoke withdrawn and Alphys made puns here and there, something she was never comfortable with doing, and Sans was… and maybe it really was what they were saying. Something unexplainable that they’d have to go up north to find out. And that felt like the place he would find his answer.

Sans, Sans. Something Asriel had always known, that secret. I know you took her soul, he wanted to say, nonchalant, his mouth adrift as it struggled through the thick pie crust. When she died, you took her soul. Not for me. Not for her. But for IT.

Partner.

For you, Partner.

When everybody else was nearly finished with their pie, Asriel noticed he was behind, and ate it in one bite, much to the amazement of Sans.

“take it slow, kiddo. everyone here’s eating at a ‘snail’s pace’. lets you taste it.”

Everyone laughed.

Ha.

Everything set itself in a half-real pace, as he drifted between awake and asleep at the table, his eyes closed and his eyes open, and by the time he had regained consciousness and use of his legs and arms he had already said goodnight to everyone, and already laid down in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t tell, but he thought for a moment he saw Alphys start to sleep on the couch, and Undyne sleep alone, and he couldn’t tell, but he thought that Sans might have given her a look and a grin right before the two of them split apart.

Oh, but he couldn’t tell. He just made his way home, and his only home was in the bed next to Frisk’s, and started to think about numbers, namely the distance between the house and the place up north they were planning to go.

Sans noticed Toriel standing by the door to his and Papyrus’ bedroom as he lurched up, his bones aching from exhaustion.

“hey, tori,” he said.

“Sans,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“something up?”

“The ceiling!”

He chuckled hard, rattling his ribs. “nice one.”

“I was thinking we should, uhm… do the thing. You know. Head to my room, a-and…”

Sans stared blankly at Toriel. “what?”

“W-Well. I’m afraid to come out and say it, b-but.. I thought, since… well, your brother can handle himself for a night, right?”

Sans stared blankly at Toriel. “what?”

“...Taking our relationship further?”

Sans stared blankly at Toriel. “...there’s a joke at the end of this, right?”

“No, Sans, I’m talking about taking this to the next level. And I don’t mean upstairs.”

“we’re… friends,” he said, completely confused. “friends, and purely friends. with literally nothing that would point to a relationship beyond that.”

“Right! That’s what I thought, until… remember? Did you forget?”

Sans stared blankly at Toriel.

“Uhm. Immediately before you planned to leave with the other two, you told me you wanted to do something together. And… maybe it’s too soon, but I figured, hey…”

He looked down. The sheer awkwardness that hung in the air nearly knocked him on his back, but the atmosphere by itself was already doing that, so he maintained upright. “a prank of… intense proportions. completely insane. maybe even a little too far.”

“Wait, th-that was a prank?”

“not on you, but on me. and there’s only one guy who would go to those lengths.” Toriel looked at him expectantly. The little skeleton always had a punchline, and even if his words weren’t joking, they certainly landed on a strong note. He said, “only one guy, and that’s me.”

“Oh.” Toriel paused. “...Ha?”

“no, i mean, seriously, i was just pranked by myself. give me your phone for a sec.”

Toriel picked her phone from a pocket in her robe, and handed it to Sans, still reeling a little. He promptly called himself.

With no hesitation, the one on the other line picked up.

“how’d you know we were coming?” asked Sans.

From the other end, Sans only chuckled.

“you set up a joke on us before we even got here. how?”

“this power… it’s more than i thought it would be,” he replied. “a human soul isn’t quite enough… but the anomaly’s got something else in mind.”

Sans stood next to Toriel, clutching the phone to his earhole. His permanent grin dropped and hung open. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. Before he could even begin to manage a word, the other Sans hung up the phone, and he was left in the hallway in a state of panic, which he still hadn’t gotten used to feeling.

The danger wasn’t a natural disaster, and it wasn’t Chara-- at least, he assumed it wasn’t. It was the anomaly, the quality that gave Frisk their choices and power, the kind he had guessed Frisk already had. But if that were the case, his other self was blabbering gibberish. He’d just seen Frisk ten minutes ago, heading to bed.

In an instant, past the exhaustion, Sans got the motivation to start moving again. Something he’d picked up from Alphys-- being able to push through tiredness. “i gotta go. sorry for the confusion, tori.”

“It’s… okay, Sans. Where are you going?”

“road trip.” He lurched into Papyrus’ room, shook him awake (much to his disdain), and the two slipped downstairs to retrieve Alphys, too, who hadn’t fallen asleep yet anyways, and his muttered explanation wasn’t necessary, as she had come to trust his realizations ever since the two of them had stood in front of Papyrus’ grave and said goodbye, and since his epiphany told them they were about to die. None of the three of them wanted to move, but out of duty as ‘time cops’, they did.

Asriel was standing in front of his door ready to leave when the three of them swung it open. “I was thinking about it, a-and there’s no way you two could have gotten there and back before--”

Sans gently put a hand up and shook his head. “we lied about the whole thing. and we kinda need your help to get somewhere.”

“...What?” Asriel asked. Frisk groggily rubbed at her eyes, sitting slightly upright in bed.

“look, it’s got something to do with the anomaly. we don’t know a lot about this timeline, but you do. and we’re out of transport.”

“With… w-with the anomaly? I knew it. I knew you had Chara’s soul.”

“naw, kid.” He turned to face Alphys and Papyrus, who each made a tiny wave. “we’re cops from another timeline. we went undercover to try and protect you, but i think it was our other selves that were the problem. and like i said-- it’s got something to do with chara. who you obviously know more about than us.”

Asriel stood slack jawed. Frisk called from the other end of the room, “Are you guys going somewhere? Should I get up?”

He turned back and said, “N-No, it’s… uh, I don’t wanna drag you into this.”

“Cool,” she replied, and slumped back into bed

He went to face the trio again, frowning angrily. “If this is a prank…”

“It’s not. We’re not that mean,” said Alphys.

“Then what do you need transport for?”

“we actually did get to the workshop. or, uh, alternate us. and i’m pretty sure other me has a human soul, and the anomaly. however that works. seems like they’re working together, somehow.” He kept his voice weak enough that Frisk couldn’t hear it. “so we might want to get there before anything bad happens. capiche?”

Asriel sighed. Perfect. Just when things were starting to fade away, things just had to get worse. “...Yeah. I get it. Sort of.” He sighed. “We’ll talk on the way.”

“That’s my favorite thing to do on the way!” announced Papyrus.

Four figures, and the one leading them out was Asriel, his hands clenched into his claws, feeling irrationally angry at their suddenness and their lies, too busy seeming aggressive to process exactly what they were saying. In the haze, still stuck halfway between alive and dead, he couldn’t tell if it was a very long, pathetic joke, or simply him mishearing their entire conversation. Regardless, even in his stupor, Asriel knew the way from his room, trailing down the stairs and into the garage.

“I’ll drive,” he said, snatching a key from a table nearby and swinging open the door to one of the two cars, which looked much too tall for him.

“Aren’t you a little young to be driving?” asked Alphys.

He turned back at the three of them. “Humans were almost wiped out a year ago, which you should know by now. You really think they’re gonna care about something like an underage Monster driving around at night? What, do any of YOU want to do it for me?” Papyrus raised his hand up excitedly, and Sans shrugged. “...Yeah, that’s probably not the best idea. Just get in.” They piled in the back, and he piled in the front.

Only after he had opened the garage door and slammed the pedal did Asriel start to become lucid, and slowly he realized that the situation might just be real. “How did you three even get here?”

Sans pointed at his hand, and the device around his bony ring finger. “you know about shortcuts, right? it’s like that, except across timelines.”

“I mean, that’s gotta be a really long distance,” said Asriel. “I think you’ve told me before that the longer the distance, the more exhausting the shortcut.”

“right-- but this isn’t physical distance, it’s the distance between outcomes and potential. most timelines are kind of similar, save for a few details… i mean, yours is pretty out of whack. i couldn’t move for an hour after getting here.”

The Boss Monster shrugged. “Seems normal to me. Except for... Partner.”

Alphys said, “Yeah, that’s kinda our first question. What’s with the anomaly?”

“Chara said it was like... her ‘friend’.” said Asriel.

“You mean, ‘their’ friend.” she replied.

“Her friend.” he repeated.

“‘Their’ friend.” she repeated.

Asriel turned around as the headlights blared on, piercing the darkness suddenly. “Don’t you have a Frisk? Did you NEVER ask if she was a girl or not?”

The three of them shrugged. “it didn’t really come up,” said Sans. Asriel sighed deeply, and went back to staring at the road.

“It- and Partner DEFINITELY isn’t a girl, I’d probably say it’s more of a demon- inhabited her soul and gave her enough power to kill seven billion humans and my dad. Sans says that it’s also capable of manipulating time, but that it hadn’t ever used that power.”

“But if Chara died, then wouldn’t Pardner die as well?” asked Papyrus, inquisitive. It was a reasonable assumption. Sans was proud.

“Well, I’m pretty sure Sans took her soul to investigate the anomaly. He never told anyone about it. Probably because it’s dangerous.” He turned back, and the worried look on Sans and Alphys’ faces confirmed that suspicion. “So… what, if you two are from a different timeline, doesn’t your Chara have the same thing? Why do you have to ask?” He swerved out of the way of an abandoned car which hadn’t yet been moved, and swung the passengers to the side with clumsiness.

Alphys lowered her head and frowned a little. “We don’t… have a Chara. Not a living one, anyway. It’s kind of a long story.”

“It’s a long drive,” said Asriel. “Figure you might as well get it over with. What happened?”

She began. “You and them- her?- were like brother and sister. But I guess in your timeline, Frisk fell early enough that Chara could leave somehow. In ours, a lot happens in between. After a long time of being down in the Underground, you and Chara make a plan to break the Barrier. They kill themselves and give you their soul, which let you go outside and collect human souls. But you resisted, and didn’t hurt anybody, so the, uh…” She took a breath. Asriel stared wide-eyed at the road. “But the humans, they killed you. And then way, way later, after decades and six humans, you kinda got brought back to life as a flower. And that’s where things get REALLY interesting.”

“No, it’s fine,” said Asriel with tenseness. “I’ve heard enough. That’s normal for you guys?!”

“Indeed, it is normal!” said Papyrus. “That is why I called you Flowey! Every timeline has one. Some are mean, some are nice, but it’s my duty to be friends with all of them!”

“A-Anyway,” said Alphys, “the point is, the anomaly in every other timeline is Frisk. Which is why it’s super weird that yours is some ethereal ‘demon’. Did it possess her, or…?”

“It just talked to her.” He wanted to say, it talks to me, too. Now I hear it in my dreams. Now I see it everywhere. And now it told me you three were fakes.

Fake, fake, fake. Liars. Every time things start to calm down, something else comes to mess it up. Now it’s you three. Chara is never, ever going to let me forget about her.

Partner told me, you’re not my friends. It told me to leave you behind.

“then whatever it’s saying now, it’s saying it to sans. the other sans.”

“And he’s got Chara’s soul,” said Alphys. “That’s… kinda bad.”

“question is, what’s he doing with that power? and, i mean… the workshop wasn’t a lie. there are turbines and generators all over the place, last we checked. i don’t get that part, either.”

Asriel muttered, “Well, it’s not that far. We can get there by noon tomorrow.”

Lights on the car only pierced the light so far. He wasn’t conscious at all. So many questions, and he didn’t answer half of them. In the darkness so little was visible, except against the moonlight the trio could see the remnants of civilization, one that had disappeared suddenly, strewn across hills and landscapes that didn’t really exist. They watched as empty cars, a year and a half old, sat motionless where they had slammed against buildings or trees, or simply idled on the road, and Asriel avoided every single one effortlessly, having traversed the trail out of town so many times, and with nobody to clean up the mess it had become its own kind of environment. Houses overcome with ivy, overturned sheds and closet-looking things, so short that the erosion itself eventually brought them down, as if the lack of human population had destroyed their spirit and forced them to the ground and smashed them. In the reflections of the headlights they saw what had once been both empty and full, and what had once been so loud and silent, and now it mulled and sat, blandly overtaken by the noise of nature, with the occasional light on where people had decided to set up shop. Then it would fade behind them, lost to the distance, and slowly the lights became less common, and slowly his eyes watered whenever introduced to anything suddenly. Alphys asked, “If Chara died, how do you know all this? How do you know she heard the anomaly, and that she killed all these people?”

He said, “Because I watched it happen, and then I stabbed her to death.”

Then there were no lights, and only the calm road leading into trees, and then forest, before he could even realize he was swerving and careening so badly he was practically drunk. Papyrus yelled, “Roller coasters are NOT for travelling! We are going to roller coast RIGHT into a tree, and that’s not good!”

“Yeah, okay,” Asriel sputtered out. “We’ll stop for the night. I guess I’m tired.”

“thanks for driving us, kid. i know this stuff probably isn’t easy for ya. bad memories, and all.”

He took a deep breath, dropping the car down to a stop by the side of the asphalt and laying back in his chair. “Yeah. Bad memories. Lots of bad memories.”

Sans unlocked one of the side doors. “did we pack food? we didn’t pack food, did we.”

“No,” said Asriel. “But Mom keeps snacks in the trunk.”

Alphys grinned. “Awesome. We’ll stop here for the night. Uh...” She stretched a bit in the cramped chair and faced the other two in the back. “Wanna go get some fresh air?” They nodded in sync, though Sans looked almost dead from tiredness.

The Boss Monster simply flopped his ears into a comfortable position and put the driver’s seat slightly down. He was barely tall enough to see over the dashboard and fit into the chair like it was a capsule. “I’ll stay. Exhausted. Wake me up when it’s time to go.”

Papyrus popped open his door and slid out enthusiastically, shouting, “We are now in a different place! I’ve never gone that far in a vehicle without crashing!”

“that’s ‘cus you weren’t driving,” said Sans, chuckling.

The three made their way out, circling around in the darkness and letting their eyes adjust. Asriel lazily flicked off the headlights and sat back, idling. Alphys pulled her way around to his window. “We’ll be back in a little bit. You sure you’re OK by yourself, or do you want one of us to stay with ya?”

“Really, it’s OK,” he said, muffled through the glass. “I need some time alone, too.”

“See you soon, Flowey!” exclaimed Papyrus, his grin just as wide as Sans’, and Alphys noticed it was just as genuine. In response Asriel simply nodded dimly and waited for them to leave, and when they left, haphazardly walking away from the road into the trees, lit only by the moonlight until they were lit by nothing at all, he took a deep breath and laid back in his chair.

“You seem like you’re gonna fall over and die,” said Alphys, clutching Sans’ hand, and his shoulder, and pretty much his entire body. “Could’ve just stayed in the car.”

“we haven’t been alone together for a couple days, now. worth dying for, y’know?”

Alphys turned plainly to Papyrus, who crossed his arms and looked up dismissively. “You two are insufferably cute! What this forest needs is SNOW, not cuteness.”

Sans chuckled, but he didn’t turn to face his brother, just nuzzled his head into Alphys as hard as he could, whispering. “remember when we went and made snow angels in snowdin forest, way outside town?

“right after they made you queen. place just like this, but white as far as you could see. and there we were, just messing around for no reason.”

“We didn’t have long,” she said. “Lots to do as queen, and all. But it was enough time to slow down.”

“like right now?”

“Yeah.” Alphys kissed him on the neck as best she could, a thoroughly awkward demeanor due to anatomy, which made her chuckle gently.

He responded in kind, and the two laughed so silently that only they heard it. “al, i ever tell ya i love you?”

“Jesus,” she exclaimed, grinning. “Way to drop a bomb like that. Ruin the moment.”

Sans started laughing so hard his ribs hurt, and the two embraced right next to each other, and Papyrus awkwardly snuck glances their direction as he stared at the motionless, dark forest.

No, not motionless.

Monster Kid stood half behind a tree, trying not to breathe, but even in the darkness his exaggerated and terrified reaction was visible. As soon as they locked eyes, the only bright thing in the entire forest, Papyrus said, “Hello, friend!”

Clutching the trunk with his cheek, MK went through a long series of thoughts. Obviously he had been seen by at least one of the trio, and he wasn’t sure he could run through the dark fast enough to evade them. But then another thought surfaced- he had already seen a van containing Alphys, Sans and Papyrus pass this part of the woods a day ago, and he’d never seen it return or even approach; now the three had come from an entirely different car. By the time he had thought through all this, the pair embracing one another quickly pulled apart and scrambled to explain.

“Oh, hey!” said Alphys. “D-Don’t worry, uh, your sister’s still wherever she’s supposed to be. We’re just, uhm… just…”

“other alphys and sans! and papyrus. time cops. time cop alphys, time cop sans, and time cop papyrus. totally separate.”

Papyrus beamed. “You have no need to be afraid!”

MK considered his options, but eventually decided to step forward into the open, nervously shuffling his feet and looking away into the rest of the forest.

“...Why are you so far out here?” asked Alphys. “Doesn’t your sister take care of you?”

“Nah,” murmured MK. He hadn’t spoken for a little while and his voice sounded hoarse. “I don’t really have anyone.”

Sans tilted his head to the side. “why?”

MK did his best to shrug, diverting his gaze back to the three of them, whose expressions faded. “I’m, uh... Alphys doesn’t really like me, a-an’ I used to like hanging around Undyne, but now the Royal Guard’s gone, and… I’m kind of an awful kid, y’know? Things are OK out here. People don’t get mad at me as much.”

Alphys walked closer, lowering her height as she had learned to when MK was in trouble, and with their heads level she said, “That’s n-not even close to the truth! You’re not awful, you’re-- you’re a really good brother. Smart. She’s doesn’t know who she’s missing out on.”

MK looked down again. “Y-You seem really strange. All three of you are… nice. I-If you’re time cops, does that mean you come from… somewhere else?”

“just a place where things happened differently,” said Sans. Him and Alphys looked at each other’s eyes for just a second, and then back.

“Hey, u-uh…” MK spun around, looking at the forest and all its contours and bends. “Do any of you have magic? L-Like, can you do magic stuff?”

“Of course!” announced Papyrus. “We would be quite terrible police if we weren’t all magic gurus, wouldn’t we?”

“yep,” Sans agreed. “though, queen alphys is probably the best around.” She giggled.

MK beamed, staring at the three of them in a tired and perfect harmony. “Q-Queen Alphys? That’s really cool.”

Alphys shrugged. “Not a lot of people call me that, nowadays.”

“Anyway, there’s this thing in the forest,” said MK. “Needs some magic to work, but it’s totally worth it. C’mon, it’s right between the road and the river.”

He sped off, his unarmed self hopping and skipping over unseen, overturned branches and greenery, navigating without a second thought for any of his actions. Immediately Alphys and Papyrus (and Sans, albeit at a slow pace) tried to catch up, but were left constantly trailing behind, giggling and panting as they ran through their own exhaustion and followed MK deep into the dark of the trees, tracing his footsteps exactly to keep from tripping over. The faint idle sound of the car faded down the road, and for what felt like an infinite, magnificent time, the four of them ran deep into the dead woods.

“hey, kid,” managed Sans, exasperated and limping, unable to keep up whatsoever. “you mind slowing down?” It went unheard by everyone except Alphys, who stumbled toward him, giggling, and lifted his light bony body in her arms. He put the back of his hand on his forehead, swooned, and laughed maniacally. Papyrus scorned him, and Alphys nearly broke over from the extra weight, but they continued for a few more moments before MK stopped, fumbling to the ground and then up, standing in front of a great and thick fir tree.

He said, struggling to get a breath, “This is it!” Attached to the front of the trunk was a rectangular sheet of metal, haphazardly dotted with scrap electronics and wires and concave dishes, all arranged in a way that Sans and Alphys could barely make out at all. “One of you’s gotta blast it with some magic power. And it lasts for a little while.”

Sans unhinged from Alphys’ arms and turned to MK. “you can’t?”

“Uh. I’ve never been able to use magic, l-like my sister. I mean, my sister that’s HERE, not you,” he said, nodding to the queen.

“Hey, I used to think that, too,” she said. “It takes some effort, but if I can, I bet you can, too!”

MK closed his eyes and squirmed a little, making an exasperated ‘hnng!’ before giving up almost immediately, drained and sighing. “Nope!”

“Well,” said Alphys, “You can work on it.”

“Can’t one of you just hit the thing? Please?”

Sans stepped forward and limply reached a hand toward the device, struggling with the magic in his eye to release it. After a little while of being unable to muster the energy, he turned to Alphys, panting and letting air flow through his jacket and ribs. “you didn’t remind me not to run. i told you to remind me, and you totally didn’t.”

She grinned. “Lazybones.” In one swift motion Alphys generated a field of electricity which shot from her arm to the tree in an arc. Wasting no time at all, the concave discs absorbed the energy and radiated an inaudible signal, bouncing off the trees rapidly. Suddenly, the gray, rounded bulbs planted on trees all around them lit up.

“Oh my God,” said Alphys.

It was like the forest had turned into a stadium suddenly, buzzing and humming with the cacophony of static electricity emanating and vibrating on the bulbous membranes of the mushrooms, each one sending massive beams of light that cast infinite shadows along the nearby trunks, and turned night into day. They reflected inconsistently and madly, like a hall of mirrors, and Sans felt the hum and tick of the machine almost overpower the hum and tick of the plants’ blinking glow.

MK walked up expectantly to Alphys, spinning and gazing around in complete awe. “Cool, right?”

Sans looked impressed, turning back down and nodding slowly, in place of Alphys, who was too distracted. “who made this, kid?”

“River Person!” he said.

Slowly the projected light began to flicker as it grew further away from the source, running out of relays. “that old thing? thought all they did was ride their boat around.”

MK said, “Yeah. I mean, River Person is probably the only person who cares at all about me. So, y’know, they made this thing. Too bad I can’t use it.”

“H-Hey,” murmured Alphys, still gazing around at the beams of light from every direction. “Don’t worry about that. You’ll get better at it.”

“I guess.”

Papyrus knelt down to his height. “Well, we were incredibly lucky to meet you! This place is JUST like Waterfall with those lights on! Only one step away from Snowdin!”

MK laughed. “Well, y’know, it’s not really luck, so much. I saw you guys driving and followed for, like, five miles.”

“F-Five miles?!” exclaimed Alphys in disbelief. “Five… five miles? Followed? Moving car, driving?”

“Yep,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m really fast.”

“But… b-but…” She turned, grinning, to Sans, who simply shrugged.

“Anyway, once I got to where you stopped, I followed for a little longer, and then, um… Papyrus noticed me.”

“The great Papyrus cannot be followed! It is simply not possible!”

“Or I’m just crummy at following people! I… don’t meet a lot of ‘em, anyways.” He sighed and kicked at a rock, as the forest slowly and gently fell back into its ambient, dark blue tone, the light from the machine on the tree fading. “Why did you guys get dropped off here, anyway? Like-- secret cop business?”

Alphys shook her head gently, smiling. “We weren’t actually being dropped off, just getting out for some fresh air.”

“Really?” asked MK. “‘Cus your ride left right after you did. Sped off really quickly.”

Sans sighed as the other two quickly fumbled for an explanation. “knew something was bothering him. didn’t think he’d actually leave us here, though.”

“...Maybe he wanted to protect us,” said Alphys. “Y-You know. By going by himself. Maybe he wants to talk to Chara.”

“yeah.”

Papyrus said, “Perhaps he was simply scouting ahead and saving us the trouble! He would surely be back by now.”

“i’ll go check.”

“Hey, wait,” Alphys blurted out, “you’re exhausted.”

“it’s a five minute walk. no big deal.”

She didn’t get an opportunity to plead again, because in two instants Sans was there and back, a bit more worn than before, his bones struggling against his jacket. He did his best not to make it apparent. “no sign of him. we’re probably not gonna get to alternate-us in time.”

“Wait,” said MK. “You gotta get somewhere fast? That’s one of the few things I actually know how to do! I’ll ask River Person to take you!”

Alphys considered for a moment. “I guess we don’t really have any alternatives, right?”

“it’ll be just like old times.”

“Old times?” asked Papyrus.

“River Person used to be the one who took everyone between the city and Hotland. You know, back where I was queen,” said Alphys. “It was a huge load, but somehow there were never any problems.”

Dejected, he slumped. “Well, that’s a timeline I’ve never been to.”

“is the river far from here, kid?” asked Sans.

“Nope! I’ll take you right there!” As MK spoke, the last of the light in the forest left. He prepared to get a head start, running toward the river, but Alphys moved at his pace, scooping Sans up from the ground again with a similar collection of laughter, and prepped herself not to fall behind too much. Sans looked big, but he was just a collection of bones, which they used to their advantage. Alphys had always wondered how he always felt a weight on his shoulders when he weighed so little. How he struggled to get up some mornings, despite his lightness, and how she would stay in bed with him for hours as the two talked and watched movies and made puns, and they gave up their duties for the day until the afternoon was fading into night and people were starting to wonder where they were. His bones were hollow and his magic felt strong, and yet they had so much trouble holding him together.

In the dimness, it seemed like the calm waters of the river were glowing a faint blue. Papyrus said, “Wow, just like Waterfall! I hope you haven’t lead us into the mountain accidentally.”

“Look up,” said Alphys. “The sky’s still here.”

A short little collection of words. Alphys and Sans recognized it as the words he used to say to her, the month after they made it out of the Underground, the month after they exiled themselves to lying about it. She said, we’re going to get reset. Erased. None of this is going to stay! And he would say, look up. The sky’s still here.

She never understood his optimism until much later, when she realized it was fake, and that Sans’ worries during that short month were infinitely greater and more painful than he could describe. As ex-queen, with the backing of the living Underground, Alphys finally had the chance to talk to him about that ethereal worry of losing memory. The paranoia about Frisk. The lies, both to himself and her, all for the better, all because he ‘had’ to. All because he should have been able to get over it, and forced himself to.

A month passed and they still hadn’t lost their memories, and every night they still had each other was feverish and filled with unending, unexplainable love, which remained in full, sobbing force, even as the threat diminished. They grew closer in case they were ripped apart. Maybe, thought Alphys, that’ll be enough. If we’re ever erased. If, like before, we’re ever reduced to just another ending or another dead timeline- whichever is worse- maybe something will stay. In at least one way, she was right, but she didn’t come to realize it until much later, and for then all her and Sans did was reminisce as they stared at the river. She let him down from her arms and then embraced him again, and back, all in such a clumsy and tired maneuver that the two started chuckling without a single thing having been said.

“Why are you two laughing?! All you did was hug!” shouted Papyrus incredulously, much to their delight. “HUGS ARE NOT FUNNY!”

MK swung around and pointed with his tail at a point in the water. “Yo, there’s River Person,” he said. “If you guys really are in a hurry, you should probably get goin’ now.”

“thanks, mk.”

Alphys shuffled a little. “Wanna come with us?”

He immediately perked up. “Oh man, uh… s-sure! I didn’t think you actually liked having me around.”

“promise we’re not like that.” His grin loosened. “you can be our…”

Papyrus interjected. “Honorary member of the Time Cops, just like me! They brought me because they needed my cunning and expertise.”

Sans stepped forward and whispered conspicuously to MK, “we also brought him because alternate papyrus was gone and we needed to go undercover.”

“Honorary member,” said Alphys, rolling the words around in her mouth. “I think that’ll work for ya. You sure, MK?”

“Yeah! I’m sure. I’ll be helpful, I swear!”

The hooded figure sitting on its boat was motionless except for the soft movement of the current, and a gentle magic kept them both in place from sliding downstream. River Person’s only reactions to their presence were a nod and a gently and accented, “Snowdin or Waterfall?”

Alphys and Sans both froze, and in the darkness of the hood they saw no eyes. “Oh, I must apologize. River Person is too used to the queen’s most visited locations. We are not in the Underground any more. Perhaps you had a different destination in mind.”

“Q-Queen?” asked Alphys. “How do you know us?”

“Ah,” they murmured. “I do not mean to intrude. You clearly intend to be far away from that place and that time. A reminder is likely the last thing you want.”

MK and Papyrus both looked at the duo, who were quickly getting on the offensive despite their weariness. “that’s not really the question. we brought your consciousness back to the good timeline, but you shouldn’t know about that. this place is completely different. a completely separate time.”

“Time is for those who measure it,” said River Person dismissively. “I do not know all things. But I am aware how urgent you are, and it might not be wise to spend so much of your time on little old me.”

“W-We would like to go to the Redeker workshop,” Papyrus said, nervous.

Sans asked, “you remembered the name of that place?” He turned back down to River Person. “why is everyone remembering things today? heh, i mean, at least this makes our job way easier.”

“That workshop is quite a ways down the river. But I can take you. Hop on, friends.”

They did so. Alphys and Sans with the familiarity of somebody they had known for as long as they had known each other, MK with enthusiasm, and Papyrus with caution. The tall and mysterious River Person was only calming to those who had taken many, many trips, similarly to how a brook seems terrifying to the people who have never braved its waters.

And then there were five on the boat, a bit crowded to stay from falling off, and the enigma at the front said silently, “Off we go.”

Tra la la.

“Tra la la,” hummed River Person.

“Tra la la,” hummed River Person.

It was a bit terrifying how quickly the trees descended behind them, yet the boat was held nearly perfectly stable by magic. In one swipe of their hand, River Person put something around the five of them, an aura which skidded along the water at the same pace as their rickety vehicle.

“What did you just do?” asked Alphys, sinking into a sitting position on the boat.

“A spell to keep us hidden,” the figure replied. “So it does not see us coming.”

“it?”

“Patience, friends. I am certain you will understand soon enough.”

“R-River Person does that a lot,” said MK. “Says stuff and then doesn’t explain it. Usually, um… it ends up being right anyways.”

Gravity brought them down. Though River Person remained upright, Papyrus had collapsed into a curled-up pile of bones, Sans and Alphys had laid down at the front of the boat holding hands and staring at the ceiling of the sky, and MK hat seated himself down at the back, watching the landscape disappear endlessly, changing shape and changing distance.

He was unused to having company.

“M-Maybe, um…” MK had trouble even starting. “Maybe you could b-bring me back to the ‘good timeline’ you were talking about.

“I mean… I mean, I don’t really have anyone here.

“Except River Person. B-But I don’t think they would really mind if I left.”

“this is where you belong, kid. we don’t just take people to other dimensions willy-nilly. we’ve gotta put a ‘clock-and-key’ on that sort of thing, if you get what i mean.”

“Yeah,” said Alphys, nearly asleep. “Sorry. We already have an MK.” It felt harsh, but it was the truth, wasn’t it?

MK pleaded, “B-But… you said you brought… River Person’s consciousness. Th-that’s like his mind, right? So couldn’t you bring me with that?”

“not without the power of a human’s reset,” said Sans.

Alphys elaborated, “Without an anomaly’s reset. Apparently, they can be separate things.”

“either way… we really shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“OK,” murmured MK, dejected. He lowered on the boat as it went silent for the last time in the night, crawling into a position he could sleep in, just the sound of the forest to lull him spiralling downward, his mind in a trance.

They didn’t know how far they had left to go, but it became apparent that even as the moon above traversed from one horizon to the other, the boat hadn’t yet stopped, and the four of them fell asleep.

River Person didn’t mind.

“Tra la la,” hummed River Person.

“Tra la la,” hummed River Person.

Tra la la.

Asriel watched the sun come into his peripheral the next morning but he ignored it, panting, and his eyes burnt but he ignored it and clutched the steering wheel tighter than ever, swerving chaotically around bends and even the tiniest obstacle. He hadn’t stopped driving all night. The others would be too tired to catch up to him. Sans in his dream had said, leave them behind when you get the chance. They’re not your real friends. Fake, fake, fake! All of them. He slammed the wheel and felt the leather slam back, and screamed.

It was slow, and then it was fast. It was jittery and then it was still. Asriel stared, and all the trees beside him flew by at a million miles an hour, blurry shapes of nothing, and he’d never gone so far from home and didn’t know what he was doing, and the shapes of the trunks and leaves looked like Snowdin on fire, on fire, on fire, staring at him with judgement that he had feared since the day The Kills of Asriel ticked up to ‘one’.

One notable kill.

One, pathetic potshot on the girl that ended the world. One stab to the eye because she trusted him, because she loved him, because she just wanted to end his pain. He still cried every time before he slept, out of guilt, out of pain, but he didn’t sleep all night that night, driving as he was being led by a voice he couldn’t hear. ‘come closer. i need your help.’

Partner. And that was all he had on his tongue, was the word and name, ‘Partner’. You let Chara kill all those people, took pictures and took her descriptions of the events, and showed it to your equally sick, demented friends.

You did this, thought Asriel. You made Chara something they hate. And yet I was the one who killed her.

He drove until his back felt like it was going to snap in two, and until one of his eyes was closed and the other half-closed to let as little painful light in as possible, and until his hands burned and his wrists cracked. He drove until he was dead.

And then he drove for a while after that, too.

When he saw the looming and yet tiny sign reading ‘Redeker Workshop’, he swung to the side of the road, rubbed his eyelids open, and stepped out of the car in a haze. He only saw shadows, and the silhouette of the building in front of him, looming and massive like the entrance to the Core in the Underground, where his father used to take him and Chara, showing off every nook and cranny of its sheer brilliance. Nobody knew who had built it, but they had learned to utilize it, and to Asriel’s secluded mind, that lone contraption powered the entire world. He limped toward the entrance, which he could barely recognize as anything at all, and slipped in without a single sound.

The passage in front of him lead only to another set of double-doors, along with many branches off and abandoned rooms, but the only noise in the entire workshop came from the room far in front of him, so he began lurching toward that instantly.

Asriel got closer, and the impulse got stronger. Something drove him toward the doors, with power, so loud and so powerful he couldn’t resist any more, even as he realized it was a terrible idea, even as--

Something grabbed his arm. Somebody. Alphys. He turned to find the trio from before, along with a new companion- MK- staring at him, their eyes and expressions stricken fully with worry.

“Why?” Alphys asked, clutching his elbow gently. “Why did you go without us?”

He turned at the doors filling with light, and back. “B-Because it told me to. It’s been talking to me f-for a long time, a-and… I knew that… I thought th-that if I came here, it’d let me see her. O-One last time, y’know?”

“chara?” started Sans. “she hurt you. she hurt everyone. what do you want to see her for?”

“She…” Asriel choked down a sob loudly. “She was my sister. She was s-so sad and nobody ever helped her. Everyone hated her, especially now th-that Partner made her into... A-And I love her, and I w-want to say how sorry I am. I want to s-say goodbye.”

“You don’t know what’s in there,” said Alphys. “You could get yourself hurt. Let us help. Let us talk to ourselves in there, please.”

Slowly, the Boss Monster looked down, shaking his head. “No. This is my fight. My problem. I-I can’t risk losing her.”

Papyrus walked forward, looking as supportive and genuine as he could, and MK hid behind him a bit. “Flowey, you are free to do as you like. But you should know we’re all your friends, and we’ll do our best to help if anything goes wrong!”

Asriel didn’t know what to say in response, so he simply grew weaker from exhaustion, turned around, and began sidling toward the double doors without breathing or existing. The four behind him nervously whispered to each other and got ready to jump at a moment’s notice, and hid themselves as he left the hall.

Sans faced the wide metal generator in the center of the main room, surrounded by wires and contraptions, saws and machinery all collected in positions far around. He stuck his unseen, bony fingers in his pockets, and kept his back to Asriel, who entered nearly clutching his stomach from a phantom pain.

“hey, kiddo.”

Asriel clenched his hands and stood his ground. “I know you took Chara’s soul when I killed her. Where are you keeping it? Where are you keeping Partner?”

Sans looked down a bit. “i’m not keeping it, az. it’s keeping us.

“not really,” said Sans, cutting into his own words. “you two are the real problem.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“it’s gonna kill us, az. it’s gonna erase the whole thing. it couldn’t get out, because i was holding it in, but it’s using him to--” Sans forced himself to stop talking.

Asriel thought, only Chara calls me ‘Az’.

The skeleton in front of him shook and rattled in struggle, digging his hands deep into his pockets, and then turned around. From his chest came the noticeable heartbeat and pulsation of a human soul, of Chara, which fueled his broken self into moving like a puppet, and the only words he could manage between his desperate grin were “i’m sorry.” He took his frail wrist from its place in his jacket, and threw it downward in a sudden motion.

His eye flashed blue.

His eye flashed yellow.

Asriel struggled against it. A force pushed his back toward the ground, but he held steadfast, contracting every bit of magic in his body to resist Sans’ telekinesis. Sans was strong, but he was only a Monster. And Asriel had the magic of a Dreemurr king in him, still resonating after Asgore’s death, and that’s what he blamed his ability to defend from the attack on.

“such a strong soul, az,” said Sans. “that’s why it wants you.”

He interrupted himself. “your soul to get me free.”

Then again, taking on a new tone. “really sorry about this, kiddo.”

In the short moment, Asriel looked to his left, and noticed his very own Alphys and Papyrus, entirely unresponsive, tied up and limp. He went agape, and in the time it took him to see their bodies laid down onto the concrete floor, Sans’ form had changed massively, as he completely invigorated himself with Chara’s soul. The short skeleton remained just as he was supposed to be, though like a shadow of light, his form expanded over himself in pure magic. Instantly he tossed a bone from the right side of the room to the left, colliding with Asriel’s chin, sending him spiralling to the other end, barely getting his bearings when another bone, going too quickly to see, thrusted itself into his abdomen and sent him flying, skittering along the ground to a halt.

He moaned out and yelped in pain, clutching at the bits of white embedded in his fur. He knew what it was like to have wounds, and the absence of anything but pain scared him completely. It reminded him of the time Chara had stabbed him in the same place, over and over. It had never left any scars, but he never forgot the pain. And it stung harder the second time around. Asriel held the ground as Sans’ magic pushed him down again, choking him out until he could barely breathe, and then further, and then he wasn’t breathing at all.

Time skipped a beat.

Alphys, Sans, Papyrus and MK took a shortcut into the room.

With only half-moments to react, the duo immediately got into a defensive position, their souls combining as a shield as one of the possessed Sans’ attacks came upon them instinctively, failing utterly against their defense. He turned to face them, away from Asriel, who gasped suddenly for air.

No time to talk. From inside Chara’s soul, a voice told him to fight, and Sans was powerless to stop it. His larger image contorted and shredded apart and sent waves of blue and white bones careening through the ground, and Alphys and Sans brought themselves and their partners to the side, narrowly avoiding their path. In the minute window they countered, sending all the magic they could in a seemingly infinite flurry of electrified white thorns. MK and Papyrus, devoid of anything to do, hid behind the other two in complete, unflinching trust.

Exchanging blows.

Alphys and Sans were in perfect sync, every one of their actions instant and planned, practiced endlessly and working to the best of their ability. But the other Sans, having absorbed a human soul, completely overshadowed them in raw power. His attacks were heavier, and the only chances they got to fight back were tiny and didn’t allow for any prep or charging up. In twenty seconds they had both sent twenty attacks. Like a conversation without silence they had no time to think, and as experts both Alphys and Sans knew this. They waited- as much as they could, under so much pressure- for an opportunity, and jumped at it.

A tiny mistake. A slip. A sign of Other Sans holding back, and they snatched it. Alphys nodded to Sans, and he nodded back, and he tapped the ring on his hand, and in an instant something had been transferred from another ending to Queen Alphys’ hand.

A trident.

Honest. Wrought iron. Dirty gray. Heavy, but Alphys was used to lifting it up.

The fight stopped. Not that the three were any less violent or that they had grown peaceful, but their movements froze as Other Sans descended into a purely defensive position instinctively upon seeing the spear. He was deluded, but as observant as ever, his blue and yellow eye scanning them top to bottom.

Gerson’s words- that silence was a necessary part of conversation- had always meant a lot to Alphys. Silence gave her time to think. Silence gave her time to talk.

“You know what this is, right?” she asked, holding the human’s weapon in such a way that with no effort she could thrust forward and deflect an attack. “If you didn’t, you’d still be lunging. And you’d lose.”

Other Sans shook, preparing hundreds of methods of attacks and immediately dismissing them as too risky. He said, “partner doesn’t know how you got here. it watched az leave you without a car- you should’ve never been able to come here.

Other Sans interjected Other Sans. “you shouldn’t have, anyway. it’s gonna kill you two. and you don’t seem that bad.”

MK and Papyrus slid to the side slowly, using the stalemate as an opportunity to run together toward Asriel, who was still moaning from pain. Papyrus conjured the little healing magic he still remembered and prayed that his brother had a handle on things.

Sans said, “no one’s gotta die here. let’s not be unreasonable.”

Other Sans said, with words that weren’t his, “i need power. raw power. to separate from chara. she’s the only thing keeping me from resetting this useless timeline. so let’s be honest: everyone’s gonna be dead by the end.

“i’m holding on as best i can, for az. but i can’t hold on forever.”

“That… that’s not your voice. That was Chara, wasn’t it?” asked Alphys.

“it’s pretty weird having two other people talk using my body,” said Other Sans.

Alphys and Sans circled the monstrous, swirling being in front of them as it probed for weaknesses in their huddled-up defense, while holing up within a cage of sharp bones pointing outward. He knew, because Chara knew and the Anomaly knew, that Alphys’ human weapon would not damage them in a magical or emotional way, but literally tear them into pieces with a single swipe, so long as she wanted it to. Its three-pronged end stuck out light as a feather, and one wrong move meant their end. So he took his time.

Weak and hurt, from the other side of the room, Asriel called out to Other Sans. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you make her do it, Partner?”

“it was a good show. the audience liked it. it was sad to see you get hurt, but so relieving when you turned out to be alright. that’s why i let you kill her. so they’d see a happy ending.

“az… it didn’t make me do anything at all. it’s my fault,” said Other Sans, and yet Asriel knew it was Chara, struggling to speak.

“No!” he shouted. “I-It’s… it’s not your fault! It’s--”

An opening showed itself. Other Sans’ wall of bones suddenly transformed into a storm of lightning-fast spines headed toward the duo. They got into position but Asriel’s words had caught them off guard, and though Alphys’ trident tore through a swath of the attacks, it wasn’t enough. Sans only assumed his being had been impaled with six or seven projectiles, because he had no time to verify, and reacted with the usual minute movement of his hand to send his own cage of ribs uprooting the concrete, which were instantly deflected and smashed apart.

In an instant, both sides had returned to equilibrium. Sans glanced down cautiously at the bones that had been thrown through his jacket; they left no physical damage, as magical attacks rarely did, but his soul felt considerably weaker, and to maintain their aura Alphys worked harder. Silence in their motions. Frozen but to sidle and watch for Other Sans to flinch.

MK stepped forward, shaking from fear. Alphys and Sans seemed to have the situation at calm, but two solemn bones extended from Other Sans’ wall of magic, ready at an instant to slice him to bits. Of course, with the trident so close, he couldn’t afford to expend the effort, but even MK, who was unfamiliar with magic, knew that his life hung on their strength. He almost managed to say something, but stuck it back down his throat.

“the boy isn’t anything anymore. he was a tragic character to a story, and that story’s over. stop defending him, it’s really getting irritating,” said Other Sans.

They tuned the voice out. Gently, ensuring they weren’t using too much of their concentration to do it, they regretted not coming up with an actual plan.

“I-Is that really it?! That’s all I am?!”

“yep.”

Asriel stood, shakily, and Papyrus put his big bones on his shoulders to keep him steady. “You’re demented. You’re-- you’re… I’m not a character. I’m not a goddamn character in your game any more!”

Other Sans visibly struggled in his own bones, formulating his attacks even stronger, while Alphys and Sans struggled to keep up, barely holding onto their foothold, each movement a half-inch from seeming death. “look at all of you. the results of a story. the ending to a story. and now that it’s over, there’s no need for you, either.” He wasn’t talking to Asriel any more, but to Sans and Alphys. “do you think the first anomaly tried to reset you for no reason? you served your purpose. and now that first frisk- your frisk- is off to other timelines, making all sorts of new events and endings. like clockwork. all i’m asking is for you to let me do the same. y’know, for the audience. gotta give ‘em a new update- a new show- once in awhile, or they get so anxious.”

New events, thought Alphys.

New endings, thought Sans.

New dead timelines, they thought.

“maybe i’ll even make the next chapter about chara, just for old time’s sake,” said Other Sans, as a final piece of distraction. Asriel suddenly screamed out and burst into sobs, utterly powerless, still stunned from the bit of bone in his chest. He was partially crying out of love for Chara, and partially because neither Alphys or Sans had noticed the attack heading their way, still lost in their heads on what had just been said.

Sans’ ribs cracked open as he was forced into one of the inactive, massive machines, splitting it apart in a crash of rubber and metal. The attack, so unnoticable in their haze, stood where Sans once did, and then slammed hard into Alphys’ top half. She recoiled, dropping the trident instantly, losing all her breath and fell onto the ground hitting the top of her head before her back. The stinging pain threw itself against her, and by the time she managed to clutch the ground in agony, a chandelier of sharpened bones hung over her, and began to thrust themselves down at Other Sans’ command.

“A-Alphys!” called MK.

He held his mouth agape, standing in the space between Asriel and the fallen Alphys still trailing her name in his mouth, unable even to form tears from shock. And something strange came from him-- a magic he had never emitted or felt in his entire life. He kept the attack hanging, and he felt like he was tearing to bits, but it lasted one moment, and then it lasted two.

“MK,” Alphys managed, and wasted no time rolling out of the way of Other Sans’ finisher as it stabbed the ground where she was only a moment ago. She hopped to her feet as quickly as she could, and waved her hand in a precise swipe, deflecting the flurry of magic headed toward MK.

Then, for a few desperate moments, they were perfectly in sync as her and Sans had been, but it was no longer practiced and elegant, but insane and chaotic, with every movement barely keeping each other safe from Other Sans’ increasing fury-- or, at least, the fury of the Anomaly.

Asriel stepped forward. Papyrus clutched the Boss Monster’s shoulder, but he had grown so old in so little time, and shook his head, and kept going.

“Chara,” he murmured.

Alphys and MK swung themselves at a bone the size of a truck, flickering blue in random intervals, and flew straight through just in time.

“Chara,” he yelled.

Other Sans quickly diverted his attention to the limping, solemn Asriel, whose steps didn’t stop even as he began to be pelted with an infinite number of attacks.

(Asriel limps. He cries. He feels cold air flow inside of him like a sickness and all the energy fades from him, but he limps anyway. Pain comes in waves and wants to knock Asriel over like a brick wall but he keeps walking until all of his body is drained to the core, and then he keeps going for a while after that.)

(I was standing on the top of the mound where I died, but there was nothing except me and him. Standing, facing each other. I lost track of the outside world and all I could see was the game, and the infinite, half-dark landscape, covered by clouds and empty of all life, and even though I meant to purify it, it still terrified me. The silence, I mean.)

(He walked up to me slowly. His eyes were filled with tears, and he had a lot of trouble even getting out one word, but he spoke anyways. “I’m sorry,” Asriel said to me.)

(What was I supposed to respond with? He expected me to be vindictive, expected me to be mad, but… I looked up from the ground and stared him straight in the eyes and grinned. “I’m sorry,” I said, correcting him.)

(“I did this to you.” He was pointing at my eye, dripping red. But I just shook my head and chuckled a little.)

(“You were saving yourself. After all those people I hurt, I kinda deserved it, huh?” I opened my arms and walked up to him, and wrapped myself around him, and his crying self did the same. “I’m keeping Partner stuck inside of me. With me in the way, it can’t destroy everything. But… it told Sans, took control of him. They thought electricity- from that generator- would be enough to force us apart, but I kept holding on. Eventually they decided that they needed a Boss Monster’s soul to do the job, so he made Sans lure you here and ditch the others.” I frowned over his shoulder as he clutched me tight.)

(“I love you,” he sputtered.)

(“I love you too, Az.” I couldn’t hold it in, really. My remaining eye burst into tears, and I couldn’t stop crying, and yet I couldn’t stop laughing, either, because I had missed him so much, and feeling his soul against mine for the last time evoked the last bit of pain out of my body, and it hung in the air. “I’ve gotta end this, now. You’ve gotta end this.”)

(“I’m not gonna leave,” he murmured.)

(I took a deep breath, slowly. “Soon it’ll kill the time travelers using Sans’ body, and then it’ll kill you. And then everything will be gone. A-After everything, Az… after everything I put you through, it can’t end here.”)

(“So what? How do we stop it?”)

(I broke the hug and pointed solemnly at myself. “It’s contained inside me. I’m like a cage. If the cage collapses, so does its inhabitant.” I shivered a little in those last moments. “I know you hate hurting things. Don’t think of it as me, OK? I’m not long for this world either way.”)

(“F-For nothing,” he choked. “You’ll be dying just so th-that you can get rid of Partner. Just a little voice in your head.”)

(“Well…” I considered, smiling a little under my low expression. “Not for nothing, I guess. MK wants a ride to his sister’s timeline, last I heard. When I die, I can use Partner’s power one last time to take him there.” He sighed, but laughed, too, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, we were happy together. “Perks of having an all-seeing asshole for a Partner,” I said.)

(Asriel put his hands on mine, and I dropped something sharp into his hand, which he gripped tightly. “There’s… n-no other way?”)

(“I love you, Az.”)

(He cried. Like usual, haha. “I love you, Chara.”)

I love you so much, Az. You gave me the last happy memory in my life, being with you.

I died.

Partner died, too.

Other Sans fell on his back, drained utterly, and fell unconscious.

Like the world was going in slow motion, Asriel watched, glassy eyed, as Alphys and Papyrus ran after Sans, who turned out to be fine, and grinned, and him and Alphys embraced in the longest kiss he had ever seen. They untied the two alternate selves and gave rushed explanations, and then Alphys ran up to Asriel, asking, “Where’s MK?”

“Chara sent his memories to your timeline,” he stammered.

Alphys sighed and grinned in relief. “Well, I guess that’s one less moral dilemma we’re allowed to make.”

The three time cops huddled around him and sat down, and he whispered everything that had just happened, in between tears. Sans grabbed him around the shoulders and he didn’t flinch, and he asked, “you want us to stay here with ya for a little while? work things out?”

But Asriel shook his head gently. “I’ve got Frisk. She knows more than you guys, anyway.” He swallowed. “And I’ve gotta get these three dinguses back home,” he said, pointing at the other, identical trio.

Alphys shrugged and grinned modestly. “Yeah, I guess somebody does.”

“we’ll visit, kid,” said Sans. “you know. when there’s ‘time’.” He chuckled.

Asriel shook his head again. “For a year, I-I’ve been praying that… that all of this would go away. That ‘The Kills of Chara’ would stop haunting me. The ‘audience’. The ‘partner’. And now, I guess, I can. You guys are nice, but… I want to have a real life. One that doesn’t require craziness or interference or games. I can’t stop you, but you really don’t need to come back.”

Papyrus stepped forward, his expression warm. “We will not visit…” He paused. “...as often as usual!”

The little Boss Monster laughed, and cried, and had trouble differentiating the two, and talked for a while longer, his voice breaking and his eyes closing. Awkwardly, Other Alphys and Other Papyrus hoisted Other Sans awake, and the three of them struggled to explain to each other what had happened, not daring to butt into the conversation.

Then, at some point, it felt like Asriel could stay awake no longer. He slid against a wall and sat until his tears ran out, and said without talking, “Bye.”

He whispered to himself, “Chara, promise me something, OK?

“Promise we’ll never stop being friends.”

(I promise, Az.)

And then, like that, he was asleep. The time cops disappeared, and Sans drove him all the way home.

On the other side MK ended up to be alright, and he was oddly ecstatic at the strange sensation of having memories of two entirely separate lives. Alphys and Sans grinned and talked endlessly about their miraculous success, closer than ever, but they had something on their minds, still. Something which had stuck with them since they heard Other Sans’ distorted voice blurt it out.

‘and now that first frisk- your frisk- is off to other timelines, making all sorts of new events and endings. like clockwork.’

They realized together that the thing which had killed all of their friends just to bring them together was still alive, still ruining or saving endless people, and then erasing them all the same. They realized together that although they had escaped, it wasn’t over.

Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I can finish this thing.


	7. The LOVE of Frisk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys and Sans have been fixing timelines, but some things shouldn’t be tampered with.

Alphys remembered.

The TV was on, but it was on quiet. White noise and background static. Comforting. It didn’t blare and it didn’t have a lot interesting to say anymore, playing the same movie Alphys and Sans had watched in the morning, in dimness and silence as the daylight slowly slid into midnight without either of them falling asleep. Sans had been trying, but he remained on the worn, muddy-red couch that they had set up in their joint-owned room and stared at the screen absentmindedly until she came back in, holding a bowl of cheese puffs.

“hey,” he mumbled warmly. His grin was plastered with brightness that had trouble fading even when things seemed grim. She smiled wide and slumped over, setting the bowl on the table in front of him and then flopped over his body, lying flat and taking up all the space.

Sans sunk further into the cushions as Alphys sighed deeply, wrapping her arms around his ribcage until she had completely enveloped him, and they both watched the movie on the TV. “Hey,” she said.

He mused, “we should probably get to somewhere we can sleep for real.”

“I-I mean, this is pretty comfortable.”

“yeah, but it’s not a bed.”

Alphys pulled up a little so she could look at his eyes, which were dimmer than usual, though probably from lack of sleep. “A couch is totally a bed. It’s a bed with a vertical portion, and more pillows.” She glanced at their actual bed, wide and short, sitting in the corner of the room with two nightstands that bordered it in symmetry. It was only about a yard away. “And the for-real one is miles from here. Let’s just, y-y’know, stay here for a little while. Eat snacks. Hang out.” Sans hummed quietly, and then nodded, his grin growing wider in the most subtle of ways.

Alphys remembered when Sans was such an inaccessible box, when she never knew if he was happy or sad, because his smile was a permanent daylight and she had only just gotten to know him in Grillby’s for the first time. She had just gotten to know his eyes which got less bright when he was worked up, and the tiniest twitches in his expression that eventually meant terror or happiness to her. She had just met him back then, and now Sans’ body was as familiar as her own, almost like an extension.

She closed her eyes and wrapped her claws around him calmly, but Alphys’ mind stayed in that moment, in that place, and the darkness of shut eyelids was still bright enough to keep her awake, and the far-off sound of the television still hung in front of her.

Sans lifted his head up and opened his eyes, checking to see if she had fallen asleep, and almost on cue she shook her head and mouthed, ‘go to sleep, Alphys,’ indicating that she hadn’t quite made it.

“yeah, can’t sleep either,” he announced. She shot open her sights and let out an unnoticeable sigh of relief upon seeing Sans’ skull. “still wide awake.”

Alphys shrugged plainly in the confined hug. “Kind of a weird night.”

“i know, right? az really needs to learn when to cut off his standup thing. i think i busted a rib laughing.”

“That part where he started imitating Metta,” she whispered in awe, grinning. “The whole bit was crazy good. You taught him well.”

“i’m a puns guy. we’re puns people, the two of us. that kid is pure improv.”

“Yeah.” Alphys groaned lightly as she settled further into the couch, caressing Sans’ midsection and breathing deeply, but silently. “Alright, but that was hours ago. We’ve gotta sleep, or something. Got any solutions?”

Sans pressed his bony finger against his chin and bit down harder on his smirk. “how about a hypothetical? those usually get me to sleep.”

“You got one?”

“i mean, if you’re up for it. it’s pretty intense.”

Alphys raised her eyebrows and grinned. “Go for it.”

He cleared his nonexistent throat. “so, alright, hypothetical. you get to ask one question and get the answer, and it’ll be absolutely right, and true.”

“And unbiased?”

Sans considered. “sure, yeah.”

“OK, but what if I ask, like, ‘who’s the best singer’? Who am I asking for this hypothetical?”

“i dunno. god?”

She laughed. “Okay-- okay, so before I can ask ‘god’ this question, I’ve gotta ask myself, like, a hundred other ones, ‘cus, y’know, now there’s suddenly a real ‘god’ and all. Totally conflicts with everything I thought I knew.”

“right,” he said, chuckling and wiping a stray fabric off his face. “and after that?”

“A-And AFTER that,” Alphys announced, and then trailed off, thinking for a full minute. “I mean, probably… I’d want to know what happened to, uh, Frisk. And Chara. After they used their powers to send consciousnesses out of a timeline.”

Sans looked up at the ceiling. He said, “what do you think?”

“I guess they’re just destroyed,” said Alphys. “Erased. Like you’re erased d-during a reset. I just… I mean, that’s been nagging me a lot, lately.”

“hey.” Sans grabbed Alphys’ hand tight, his tired eyes growing only warmer as they became half closed, staring into her iris, and after a few seconds she looked right back, and calmed down a few margins.

“...Hell of a sacrifice, huh? Losing your memories voluntarily. Losing your actual self.”

“would you do it? i mean, if it meant saving everyone.”

She took a breath and looked off into space. “If it meant losing you, th-then… I d-don’t really know. Preferably, we’d just not get in that situation in the first place.”

“ha.”

“S-So, um… you’ve gotta respond to your own hypothetical, right?”

Sans burped, Alphys questioned how he was capable of such a thing. “sure.” He paused again, and like so many times before, he took a long silence to consider. To Alphys, and to Sans, the times where it was quiet were the times they were closest together. He eventually decided, and slipped open his mouth, his words coming out weak and cracked like bones. “i’d want to know if having pap and all those friends would be enough, if i didn’t have you.”

“Enough?”

“enough to be happy, y’know? he’s the best bro in the world, but i was kind of a mess after you forgot everything. couldn’t accept that any happy things, because… it could all go away really, really quickly. instantly.”

Alphys clutched his hand tighter. “We’ve gone to timelines where I end up with her, right? And you seemed okay.”

“yeah. but i’m really, really good at ‘seeming okay’.”

She sighed and made a small smile, weaker by the moment. “Y-Yeah, that makes two of us.”

“i just don’t wanna lose you again, al.

“that’s all i’m sayin’.

“we had a lot of years together with gaster, and we’ve got a lot of years together now.

“and… and, it’s scaring the hell out of me that you’re gonna forget i ever existed again, and it’s gonna be right back to the beginning, and i want to know if i’m physically capable, y’know? after all that. after all this. that’s the only question i’d ask.

“that’s the only question i’d have.”

Alphys laid forward and watched the TV, her expression growing solemn and weary, and her buck teeth biting down on her lower lip. “We’re still here,” she said. But it felt impossible to say. It felt like a lie, because all her and Sans could think about was the words of Partner, still ringing in their ears, reminding them that the thing that had nearly ended them once was doing it to an uncountable number of others. They were still there, on that couch they had installed in their bedroom on an impulse, and yet Sans didn’t sleep, and neither did Alphys.

\--

The air of Hotlands stung and pressed against Frisk’s skin, reverberating, shaking and shimmying across the human’s thin skin in waves of invisible heat. It was only ten seconds ago that they were carefree and calm, because Hotlands was somewhere familiar and easy, and repetitive, even, with Alphys’ constant nagging, but now the stick in Frisk’s hand was shaking.

Twenty seconds.

Didn’t answer the phone. It rang at the same time every time and it was just starting to get annoying, loud in the creaking loudness of the Core far away, and cold. Somebody was on the other end but Frisk had long stopped talking to her. Of all the people, of all the Monsters in the underground, with their infinite possibilities and potentials for change, Alphys was Frisk’s least favorite. Insecure, pathetic, annoying. Calling on the phone about something menial, and pointless, every single time.

Fifteen seconds.

She was oblivious. She wouldn’t know until the end just how many times Frisk had heard her monologue and sat through it. Still wishing there was a way to kill her any sooner, because the satisfaction would be endless even if it only lasted for a few seconds. Then they could RESET, and it would be like it never happened at all. Frisk thought, anyone would do it if they had the chance. No consequences. No consequences to give Alphys the kind of thing she deserved.

Ten seconds.

Now the chance was coming, and it was coming over and over. Now Frisk’s apathy had turned to curiosity, and in the scathing, endless warmth of Hotlands, all they could think about was their endless list of questions to ask the new Alphys. But Frisk, in the moment, needed to figure out a way to survive first. It’d never taken this many tries to surpass a boss fight.

Five seconds.

I know your patterns.

I know your strategy.

I know that at a moment’s notice, you’ll try to escape.

Frisk swung their stick at the air and it collided with Alphys, who had just materialized a few paces from Sans, knocking her off balance in the encroaching pain of a human weapon, and the distraction bought Frisk just enough space to dodge Sans’ effortless wave of bone attacks and slams, all the while his posture stayed still and his eyes stayed closed. Alphys stood again and took on the defensive, but now Frisk’s attention was on the short bony figure, knowing every attack perfectly well and skating around them without a single mistake, swinging the stick toward Sans, taking a millisecond to assess the situation.

Alphys looked a lot different. Thin as a skeleton and wearing a cloak with the Delta Rune on it, flapping in the rising air of Hotlands, which fit her without any argument and suited the crown on her head, so delicately placed and balanced that it would never fall off without a push. In her two hands she spun around and wielded a trident of gray, which had killed Frisk so many times that it became a permanently terrible memory.

Sans looked a lot different. His cool demeanor was always betrayed by his fight, which came unprovoked and seemingly random. If Frisk accidentally killed Alphys, he only fought harder until, eventually, the reset came and got rid of any hard work. Still wearing the same blue jacket, but with a patched-up hole in the front, so familiar and yet so far away, and wearing a small wrought iron ring around one of his fingers, which was the only thing Frisk watched with intent. The moment it started to jitter with signs of a shortcut, Frisk would reset, fearing their departure would be permanent.

A complicated unpredictable rhythm emerged from the ground in a cacophony of rumbling and shaking, and the invisible bones swerved next to Frisk’s body only inches away, each one missing. Invisible attacks were a sucker punch to those unfamiliar with them, and in combination with the strikes of lightning and swings of the trident they were nearly incomprehensible. But after so many attempts Frisk comprehended them like an elegant dance practiced countless times, and giggled and laughed at the immense challenge, using every window to hurl the force of the stick toward one of them.

It went on for a minute, and it took Frisk a long time to learn one minute of their fight. Then, two minutes passed, with the duo starting to flinch more at the hits and Frisk growing no less determined to dodge their coordinated onslaught as they communicated wordlessly, their glances growing more and more desperate. 

Sans broke his calm demeanor for just long enough, and Frisk unsheathed a toy knife with their left hand, swinging toward him, and the blunt end collided sharply with his outstretched hand. It immediately cut off the bony finger that the thick ring hung around, and that small part of Sans turned into dust. He sucked in air suddenly, eyes widening, and both him and Alphys saw it, but it was too late. Frisk snatched the device from the air and swung again with the stick, the sheer force and anger-filled intent sending him to the ground with only enough energy to survive.

Alphys lunged forward with the trident that killed four other humans, and missed, and in the same maneuver Frisk sent her to the ground, wheezing and weak. They kicked the weapon near to the boiling cliff of Hotlands and settled down as Sans and Alphys struggled to breathe, put to an inch of their lives.

Frisk grinned.

Their voice was loud on their dazed ears. Sans’ hand stung.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Frisk. “You two are… you two are the hardest bosses I’ve ever fought. Ever! Sans was a pushover after ten tries, but you…” They waggled an extended finger toward the toppled time cops. “Ten tries and I was still dying on your first onslaught. God, you’re good together. You move like you’re one singular organism, or something. And, Jesus, the look on your face--” Frisk pointed to Sans-- “when I kill her! You get pissed. Angry like I thought you weren’t even capable of. And you die even easier after that!”

Somewhere in the distance, a piece of Hotlands simmered and boiled, and popped and clicked, and the Underground shook.

“Six hundred and ninety five resets. Was hoping I could win before seven hundred. I mean, I learned how to kill you a few hundred tries ago, but wounding you? Knocking you down so I can figure out how the hell I got any of this to occur? That’s pretty difficult.” Frisk’s smile widened beyond what felt human. “So, now, who are you? What’d I do to get you here?”

Alphys stared at the place where Sans’ finger had been a moment before, her mouth hung open, but at something else. Six hundred and ninety five dead timelines. Many with Frisk dead, many with the duo turned to dust, but all of them trapped and static. The knowledge stung and although their consciousnesses remained, so many didn’t.

Six hundred and ninety five failures, six hundred and ninety five earthquakes, six hundred and ninety five endings.

“Alphys and Sans, huh? I always assumed you knew each other. What’s the story behind fighting me, though? Punishment for resetting so many times? I know people who have done it way, way more.”

The duo looked at each other, shaking a little, and nodded. “W-We’re just a random occurrence,” Alphys mumbled, taking a grin despite feeling weak. “Some timelines have us, some don’t. Totally just l-luck.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Frisk. “Except every other Monster’s got a story. A reason to fight. Even some of the weirder stuff I’ve come across, like Gaster, have a story, too. So what’s yours?”

They skipped a beat, still comprehending Frisk’s words. Only Sans had ever mentioned the name of the former Royal Scientist, and the image in Alphys’ mind was hazy at best. It wasn’t a memory, or at least not her own memory. The time was gone, and so was that enigmatic, far-gone figure with his big eyes and underdone smile. But Alphys and Sans ran immediately out of time to think as the human spoke again, picking up pace. Reduced to within an inch of life, neither one could even begin to regain the energy they had lost, and pleading was out of reach. “I know this ring is how you try to escape,” Frisk said, holding it with awe. “Escape to where, I don’t have a clue. But thankfully you never succeeded in all of those resets. I’m a little too quick for that.” The human paused. “There’s no escape and I’m clearly dangerous. So you should really start talking.”

Talking meant the mystery was gone. Talking meant telling the truth. Talking meant that Alphys and Sans boiled down to a pair of numbers, of variables, that Frisk could understand perfectly. If they knew this well enough, they would never have to give in. So they stayed silent.

“OK,” said Frisk after five seconds of deliberation. “So I’ve now reset this conversation ten times and you never say a thing. You flinched a little at the Gaster thing, but even that didn’t work. Maybe I’ve gotta do something more.”

Ten more endings. Ten more dead timelines.

“how about you toss that ring over for a sec, lemme show you how it works?”

Frisk chuckled. “Making jokes instead of providing answers, huh? I’ve only spent five hours fighting you guys and you’re already getting on my nerves.”

“We’re good at that,” said Alphys, fluently speaking in the language of confidence. Her years as Queen had taught her that much. “Y-You’re not gonna get much from us.” A gamble, if she was being honest. If they really were stone-cold and never spoke, never explained their origins, then eventually Frisk would get bored and kill them. But at least it was buying them some time.

It wasn’t a great idea to come in the first place. In their rush they had forgotten that fighting Frisk without assistance was near impossible. Maybe, if they were strong enough, the human would give up and lose determination. But now they were sitting on the edge of a cliff in Hotlands, inches away from death, both in space and in time.

Frisk stepped forward and grabbed in two hands the trident. It felt so strange, so heavy, completely unlike anything in the Underground except for the eight human weapons. But Alphys’ trident belonged to no human.

“You’ve got a strange outfit,” Frisk said to her. “Strange… weapon.”

Yeah, she thought. Thanks to you.

The human poked it forward a bit in a demonstrating motion. “Sharp, too. Wouldn’t be hard to dust you both with one swing. How many times do you think I could save and load again? How many times ‘til I get bored? Do you want to die that many times before you finally give up and tell me who you are and why you’re here?”

What Frisk didn’t know was that for every reset, a dead timeline would remain, and their power and transient nature would be removed. To Alphys and Sans, the threat held even more weight.

“No,” they eventually deliberated. “That won’t work. It’s not like you’d actually see all that death. I’ve got a better idea.

“Come on. Get up, walk with me. Fighting won’t do any good, so don’t get any ideas.”

Sans perked up a little and stood, and Alphys followed in turn. “you win, kid. obviously you had fun getting here. so let’s just move on, yeah? you’re good at ending conflict peacefully, we know that much.”

Frisk said, “You’re sparing me and I’m sparing you. What’s not peaceful about this? Just three friends taking a stroll in Hotlands!” The two time travelers stared at each other, and then back, coming to a position where they could lean on each other if they started to fall. The very air weighed them down. The occasional thought of running, of desperately fighting with their last bit of energy, was negated instantly. If they lost, Frisk would reset. If they won, Frisk would reset. They couldn’t say anything because they both knew that they had dug themselves into a corner.

Three figures walked across the stones with their footsteps echoing through the already-loud cavern. Alphys and Sans didn’t speak much, so the human simply talked with them as an audience.

“It’s kind of annoying that you appear on this timeline instead of any of the boring ones. I’m actually trying new things, here. A friend of mine spoke of a King Papyrus. I was thinking, if I killed all the potential leaders except for him, that maybe he’d…” Frisk chuckled, each step infinitely familiar down the path of Hotlands. The phone in their pocket buzzed incessantly. “He doesn’t strike me as a leader. Is your brother much of a leader, Sans?”

“maybe your friend was lying to you.”

They turned back at the two following, and waved the trident around a little. “It wouldn’t matter. It’s fun to fight these people, y’know? Having new endings is just a bonus.” Frisk grinned. “And it’s because of that recommendation that I got to fight you, too! Maybe I’ll do all of this over again, later, just to see you guys again.”

The encompassing height of Alphys’ lab was all too familiar, great and tall over everything else in Hotlands, and they could see it in the distance, slowly approaching.

“That’s where we’re going?” Alphys asked.

Frisk said, “Yep.”

“why? what’s there?” Sans already knew, but spoke anyway.

“Someone who’s gonna be terrified when she finds out that I killed Undyne.”

The mic picked it up. The mic picked up Frisk’s words, but Alphys couldn’t believe them. She shook immensely with the force of a cold hanging in the lab, then pressed on the glass, on the screen displaying the trio all travelling in a line. The mic must have had a glitch, it must’ve misheard, SHE must’ve misheard. Oh, God. The mic picked up the words, “I killed Undyne.” The camera picked up the realization on her alternate self’s face, and the infinitely small shudder along Sans’ spine. She had seen them fight Frisk and she had heard them talk to Frisk, and she had been calling every five seconds begging for an explanation, but… now they were headed her direction. And she couldn’t move to run. Alphys sat in the decrepit chair where she had spent the last hour and watched them walk, prance slowly toward her lab, speaking of a dead Toriel and a dead Undyne, except Frisk did all the speaking. Frisk, the same Frisk who had been everyone’s friend, who had seemed so genuine. So nice. So caring.

Oh, God.

Frisk killed her. Frisk killed her. Oh, God.

I can’t move. I can’t move at all. I started crying. She started crying and couldn’t move as the human walked further and further, eyes like rubies, and then stopped crying because she was overcome with something heavy, and she couldn’t breathe, either. Turned to her right where the door was. Choked. The door slid open involuntarily.

Frisk’s shadow coming toward Other Alphys. She leapt out of the chair. She stumbled and started to run, but it was too late. In one timeline, Sans stopped Frisk, trying out of pure desperation, but after they reset Frisk told him it was useless, and Alphys gripped his arm as the two of them watched. Powerless. Other Alphys cried. Moaned. Couldn’t stand the infinite weight in her throat.

“You two have got a decision,” said Frisk. “Tell me who you are, or I kill her. And she’s done nothing wrong, but I’ll kill her. And I’ll never reverse her death, I’ll never reset to before that moment.”

Sans sputtered, “don’t.”

Alphys held her mouth open halfway. Her eyes met her other eyes, and they both knew pain.

“W-Why,” Other Alphys tried to say, but it came out as a wail. Frisk held the trident at her neck. It looked sharp. It looked sharp.

“Ten seconds,” said Frisk.

“You won’t!” exclaimed Alphys, suddenly, shaking with an unsure voice. “You’d never get rid of the only chance you have of convincing us.”

“I’ll kill her and then I’ll do the same thing with Papyrus.

“After he’s dead, after you two eventually suck up and accept that he’s going to die, I’ll kill Sans.

“And Mettaton. And Asgore.

“The entirety of the goddamn Underground. I don’t care.”

Time froze for Sans. Time screeched to a halt like a train which had collided with a wall, and all he saw was Other Alphys’ pupils. From just her eyes he could see everything, he could feel everything, he could feel that terror again--the same horror and desperation, the same weakness, the same powerlessness, as he had felt in Grillby’s, as he had felt when he first met Alphys. The feeling that he was so far away. That he couldn’t grab her when she fell.

We made a mistake coming here, he thought. And then he said, “she was queen. alphys was queen of the underground for a year until you tried to get rid of us by resetting, and then she was queen for seven years after that.”

Frisk paused.

\--

Alphys remembered.

They were standing at the steps to New New Home. It looked a lot taller than before. It looked almost as tall as Alphys felt, standing under it and standing over it.

“didn’t really expect us to come back,” said Sans. “i think it’s still locked.”

“So? We’re still the owners, right?” Alphys replied, grinning warmly. He turned back and nodded contemplatively, showing signs of tiredness, but with it came the easiness and calmness that she emanated. She scanned the front for another way in.

“you wanna bust open the door, or should i?”

“Nope,” said Alphys, simply. She pointed at window not far from where the golden throne sat, covered in petals, and that had been slid open after one of its panes was smashed. “Looks like somebody already made their own entrance.”

“maybe another human fell down and broke in?”

She sighed lightly. “Hope not.”

The Underground was very quiet. In the place of thousands of Monsters was simply air, and in the place of Frisk, standing above them, was an overturned microphone that had long ago stopped being used. Alphys and Sans had estimated that they had arrived one month after their departure, when the Core had just barely enough working parts to keep going. They came to answer Alphys’ question--what happened to Frisk?

Frisk was gone. The Underground was empty. But it provided, at least, a chance to revisit the past, and a reminder of where they had spent so many lost years.

Alphys hopped up into the open window and unlocked the door, and they both stood in the entrance in awe, forgetting how large they had built it. It felt so small when they first entered after the earthquake, but it had become perfectly fit over time.

“hey, new new home.”

“Y’know,” started Alphys, “I think I remember where I put my cloak. Think I should go get it?”

Sans stepped further into the house, inspecting one of the pictures on a shelf near the entrance. “go for it, al. you always underestimated how good you looked in that thing.”

She grinned and hurried up one of the stairwells down the hall. Excited, but cautious. Her footsteps descended into muffled thumps in the distance, and Sans kept staring at the faces on the picture.

“remember that?” he said, tapping at the glass, once Alphys had stomped down the stairs in her old outfit and crown, the same she had worn as Queen. He had a gentle urge to sit her down and lay in her lap for hours, doing nothing except watch whatever happened to be playing on the TV, but resisted it.

“That photo…” She considered. “Oh, man, that’s when the Nice Cream Man made a waterslide for River Person, right?”

They had a lot of pictures of the Nice Cream Man looking proud over one of his many inventions, but this was the one closest to the door. “the one frisk rode in, right? frisk was around for that.”

“Frisk was around, yeah.”

Frisk didn’t remember being around for that.

“man, you look good in that getup.”

“It doesn’t even fit right anymore, how can I look remotely good?” She chuckled and playfully swatted at Sans.

“wanna know how you’re remotely good? because you’re good at operating the tv.”

Alphys reacted faster to his jokes than most people, and immediately began heaving in laughter, leaning on his shoulder and loosening up.

They listed toward the place where they used to sit, watching over Flowey, Frisk and MK, as they grew unbreakable bonds in the months where they still had each other. After Frisk forgot it all, the other two still remained together, but… something couldn’t be repaired. They never talked about it, and Alphys never talked about it, and Sans never talked about it. But they needed to. They needed to say,

and she did say,

“Do you think Frisk’s the same person now as they were here?”

“sure. they’re calm, friendly, always knows what to say… just like usual.”

“But they’re missing all those memories.”

Sans sat down on the couch slowly, sitting up and facing her, his expression turning to concern. “yeah, i guess. so they’re not exactly the same. but close, right?”

“I-I lost all the memories from before Gaster…” Alphys trailed off. “Am I the same person th-that you liked from before then?”

“no, i mean… not exactly. and it was hard to get over that. but… i love you now, too, al.”

“I g-guess.”

The house creaked slightly.

“You saw him fall in, so that’s why you remember him,” she said. “What if somebody else saw it, too? Standing on a balcony, or something?”

“i would have heard about it.”

“M-Maybe that person was keeping it to themselves, just like you. For the same reasons.” Under her breath, she said, ‘because it’s worse to know.’

“nobody saw but me. i’m a hundred percent sure, ok?”

Alphys nodded slowly, sitting next to him. “I know. I’m just… hopeful.”

Sans stared around the ceiling and the walls, scanning it for every detail, most of which stayed intact from where they had been before. Alphys had let herself forget some of the details, but he couldn’t allow it. Every moment was spent clutching to what he already knew and trying not to let it spill away, like Gaster and the Core, like the last moments they spent together…

Moments like the ones they spent in the same sofa, grinning with the same light.

“we did pretty alright, all things considered,” he said suddenly.

“In what way?” Alphys asked.

“the house. being leaders of the underground. surviving, y’know? pretty much everyone we knew died, and almost nothing was left. and we made it this far, eight years after. and now we’re lounging it up in a timeline where we get to spend as much time with each other as we want.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Lucky, I guess. Really lucky.”

“sitting here with those kids, sitting here with you… that was kind of a landmark. the happiest i’d been in a long time. longer than before pap died. and that should’ve been impossible, right? he was everything when i didn’t have any life in me. and then you… made me alive, again.”

“S-Sounds a little weird when you put it like that,” said Alphys, chuckling and gripping his hand tight.

“it’s just… sometimes i’m not even mad at the first frisk.”

“They got us together, I guess. Sort of like a… little demented demon matchmaker.”

Sans started laughing without meaning to, loud and hard, leaning on her shoulder as she joined in. “that’s the best way to describe it, of all time.”

It snuck up behind them and stood for a while, just listening, before it spoke. “A-Am I the ‘First Frisk’?”

They turned instantly. Frisk looked immensely old and tall, with hair thick and medium-length, frayed and messy. Sans stood and Alphys followed, and the two prepared to lunge, but the human stumbled back in terror, sputtering, “I’m not gonna--I’m not here to hurt you!”

Like so many times before, time felt like it had stopped.

“why are you here?”

“I-I could ask you the same thing,” said Frisk.

“We’re here because this is our house! You…” Alphys paused. “Y-you ARE the first Frisk. The one who killed all of our people. Your reset failed seven years ago, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Frisk. “Seven years and change.”

Sans ran through it in his head, and left silence for just a moment as he lowered his hand, trying to reduce its visible threat. “then why are you back?”

“T-To apologize. I came down to apologize, but…” The human sighed and lowered their arms. “I can tell you everything. Just please don’t leave again.

“I’ve been really lonely down here,” said Frisk.

Their heart was beating fast. Their nearly-closed eyes were more open than ever. Sans retrieved Alphys’ trident from another ending and she held it nearly at the human’s throat, leading them to the tea table by the throne, all in a tense and strange silence. “You don’t need to point that thing at me, OK? I don’t want to fight you guys.”

“Deja vu,” said Alphys.

They kept it an inch away from impaling Frisk while they spoke, hanging it under the table.

“I, uh… I heard you two are happy together.

“Even if that’s not the reason I… did all those horrible things, I’m really happy for you. Th-that it worked out.”

“why’d you do it, then?” asked Sans.

Frisk took a short breath. “I hated you. I h-hated both of you. And I thought an ending like this was as miserable as you could possibly be.”

Alphys said, “It was. For a long time. Maybe the entire time. But… we found ways to be happy again.”

“I know,” said Frisk. “I went back down a couple years after the reset. The entrance to the Ruins, then I went to Snowdin, and nobody was there. A-And I stayed hidden and just… watched you rule. Watched everything happen.”

“everything?”

“We would have seen you. How did you stay hidden?” Alphys lowered the trident slowly.

“River Person. I-I got to hear every single detail, and see every picture you took. I s-saw… I saw you coming together. And I just… I j-just… I’m sorry.”

Frisk mumbled, “I couldn’t get the courage to say sorry until you had already left, and now everything’s gone. Every Monster. Every voice. Every soul…”

Alphys broke. She took a claw from her weapon and brought it up over the table, and clutched one of Frisk’s hands resting on the surface. Her expression grew warm.

“I forgot how much I loved everyone,” said Frisk. “The people in the Underground were the only friends I had. And once that was gone…”

“They’re not gone,” Alphys said, her voice assuring and calm suddenly. “Just transferred to a different timeline.”

“Y-yeah? That’s… that’s good.”

None of them knew what to do or say.

Silence is a part of conversation, thought Alphys, but this wasn’t a conversation. She didn’t remember how they got there, she didn’t remember where she was. Everything tilted and blew apart and her breath was labored. She said, “You’ve changed. The Frisk we used to know was the worst person who ever lived.”

“You’ve got to stop the other version of me,” said Frisk. “From doing this. From doing this to anyone else.”

“if not for you, frisk… we wouldn’t have each other. me and al, we’d never…”

“It doesn’t matter!” the human exclaimed. “Killing people just t-to put two people in s-some kind of messed up relationship… that’s not worth it. That’s not worth all that pain.”

The duo looked at each other.

“You wouldn’t know. You’ve been through it, first hand, and you’re still fine with what I did. You shouldn’t be, S-Sans! Alphys! I’m a killer, you sh-should hate me, too.”

“we…” Sans struggled for an answer. “it worked out in the end. things are actually looking up, now. more than they ever were.”

“Do you know what people call it? When you kill almost everyone. Enough that there are no rulers to take over, but not quite enough to end the species? It’s called a Failed Genocide. The one where you become Queen Alphys.

“Do you have any clue how many Genocides I’ve done in my life? Timelines erased completely. Left with no hope at all. Empty.

“Do you have any clue how many happy endings or sad endings I’ve fulfilled? Because I can’t remember them all. Because I don’t remember any of them anymore.

“I could live with it. I could live with the fact that they were miserable and destroyed because they got reset in the end. Until I ended up here. Until I learned what the truth was. And…

“You have to stop it.

“You have to stop the cycle.”

Alphys didn’t know where she was.

Time blurred.

Time faltered.

Time moved.

“i forgive you,” Sans said. “maybe that’s the only thing we can do.”

“I forgive you, too,” said Alphys, nodding slowly with her eyes tired and her claws digging into the table. “And… I can think of one other thing, Sans.”

He turned to her, his eyes cold and his grin so hesitant. “yeah?”

Alphys kept her gaze on Frisk. “There’s a timeline out there where Frisk never falls down at all. If… if you wanted, we could take you there. To see all your friends again.”

“i remember that one. you wouldn’t have any resets, going into it. so dying would…”

“N-No, it’s OK,” said Frisk. “I think I’m good enough now. I don’t need that anymore. I’ll just… get the good ending, yeah? I’ll save everyone, one last time.”

“that’s probably the biggest favor you could do for them.”

The human managed a smile. It’d been so long since they had a smile. “I-I used to despise you, but nowadays, e-even if we never talked, you’re some of the nicest people I’ve ever known. I-I… I’ll have to get to know you both again. From the top.”

From the top.

“c’mon, kid,” said Sans, extending a hand, which Frisk grasped slowly, along with Alphys’ palm. “well, you’re not much of a kid anymore. still. let’s get you somewhere less lonely, yeah?”

Frisk had gotten to know their happiness from a distance, but for a moment, it shone through, and for a moment Frisk was part of it.

Had they done the right thing? Alphys was the first to question it as they took a shortcut to one timeline and back, dropping off the human on the way. She grasped Sans’ entire body tight, not completely out of intimacy, but because it had shook them both. Tight grip so they wouldn’t lose each other. Subconscious movements, out of fear. He said, “maybe frisk’s right. maybe it’s time to stop the cycle.”

“I know,” said Alphys.

\--

“That’s not possible,” Frisk sputtered out, incredulous, waving around the trident like a plaything. “I got rid of you. I reset! You can’t remember, you c-can’t be here!”

Sans and Alphys held their ground as best they could. “we don’t blame ya for being close-minded. you’re just a kid, after all.”

The human clenched their fists. Other Alphys sobbed. The world moved around her; the only thing she could think about was Undyne, Undyne’s dead, Undyne’s dead. Nothing spoken seemed to matter.

“Explain it to me. Explain it all, right now, or I’ll kill this Alphys and everyone else here.”

Sans raised his hand, and Frisk swatted at it. “A-Alright,” said Alphys. “But you can’t load your earlier save to exploit the information, OK?”

“Why not?”

“it’ll make sense when we’re done,” said Sans.

They had gotten used to the delicate language of talking to Frisk. Frisk who knew time and resets more than anyone. Alphys and Sans opened up with an explanation of dead timelines, speaking as quickly as they could as Other Alphys descended into a corner; then they told their story from Grillby’s to the front of the Capitol where the Underground existed for the last time. They explained how the ring worked and their role as time cops. It hurt to speak but Frisk wasn’t sated until they heard every last word.

“if you reset, you won’t accomplish anything. you’ll probably just get stuck without your powers in a crummy timeline.”

“You’re lying,” said Frisk. They weren’t sure exactly where to put the trident, just keeping it loosely hung in front of the duo. “I’ve never been to a ‘dead timeline’. I’ve never seen anybody from places I’ve reset.”

“I guess you’re just lucky, then,” Alphys said. “Flipped a coin a lot and never ended up hitting ‘tails’. F-From your perspective, at least.”

Frisk took a long breath. “Proof. Give proof for what you’re saying.”

“if you give me that ring again, i can take ya right to the dead timeline where we used to live.”

“No,” they said, scoffing. “Just give me a few details on where it is and I’ll go there myself. Location is just a few long number strings-- trivial to change. You’ve figured out how with magic, which is the main reason you’re so difficult to beat.”

Sans didn’t want to admit it, but Frisk was right. Although teleporting was something he was using his soul’s power to do, rather than a machine or human’s Determination, it was still a very calculated move. If he wanted to travel to a timeline, he needed the sequence of numbers that were- effectively- its coordinates. He would need to keep them in mind as he travelled, too, since the device Alphys and Sans used to calculate them was the size of a room. Unfortunately, he was awful with numbers and memorization, especially when they had rapidly visited more and more timelines. Fortunately, Alphys wasn’t. Upon Frisk’s request, she recited the set that would get Frisk there immediately after they had left. It was all very confusing and she slurred her words, so she repeated the numbers again twice until the human understood, with their eyes growing lower and more exhausted every minute.

“If these coordinates end up killing me,” Frisk said, “then I’ll come back and return the favor. And I won’t bring you back to life afterward, either.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Alphys.

The coordinates did not end up killing Frisk. In the span of an instant, Alphys and Sans assumed that the human had gone to New New Home, combed through all their memories, wrecked every single thing that still remained, and explored it so thoroughly that nothing could possibly remain. To them, it looked like nothing changed, except for Frisk’s expression, which looked exhausted. Almost as exhausted as the two of them looked.

“Looked like you really made a name for yourselves.” They poked the trident in their direction one last time. “I… need to think this over. For a little while. We’ll stay here, for now.”

“think what over? the fact that abusing your resets is the stupidest idea of all time?”

Frisk shuddered, but held their ground and reminded with eye contact that they were still in control, staring at the trident. Silently, with only movements and gestures, they said, I could kill you right now. Don’t provoke me.

“Just don’t leave the lab. And stop your…” She pointed to Other Alphys. “Make her stop crying. It’s the most annoying thing in the world.”

Like they had been held by a leash, the time cops immediately surged toward the figure who had crawled to her corner, lost, trying to keep the noise out. She barely recognized the two coming toward her as Sans and Alphys. She barely comprehended it. She thought, this is a dream. This is crazy. That’s me and him. I barely know him. I talked to him in the Throne Room after I was made Royal Scientist, and we laughed at each other’s jokes.

That’s the only thing I remember. But everything they’re saying… I should remember more. I should know what’s going on, but I don’t.

“Hey,” said Alphys to Other Alphys. She realized that they were crowding around her and all she could picture was two guardian angels. Not that she particularly cared about being protected.

“we’ve been through what you’re going through. probably, the things going through your head are…

“why’d these people protect me?

“am i dreaming?

“i kept thinking i was dreaming, when my brother died.”

“We’re sorry,” Alphys said, clutching Other Alphys’ hand in hers. “You don’t deserve this.”

Oh my God.

No, they’re serious. No, this isn’t a dream. She’s dead.

“nobody deserves this,” Sans said.

Other Alphys swallowed, and it felt like a ten-ton weight was descending into her lungs, a black hole of infinite power, sucking the air out of her and leaving her silent, mouth closed, claws dug into the metal floor. No movement except to pinch herself, just in case, just in case, just in case.

To Alphys, the feeling was very familiar. She wondered if, six hours later, her alternate self would appear in Snowdin, limp to Grillby’s, and meet somebody she’d forgotten a long time ago. Then she reminded herself that her own experiences were a fluke. Sans and her weren’t supposed to be together. They were supposed to move on. And for every other timeline, including the one they were currently in, that would be the case.

“Do you, uh… n-need us to explain why we’re here again? Did you hear the first time?”

“Uh-huh,” Other Alphys managed. “I heard.”

Frisk paced around the lab, lost in thought. Sans noted in his head that he had just worked up enough energy to shortcut. He wondered how far. Maybe out the door a couple feet and then he’d be back to exhaustion. Decided not to. Wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Alphys and Sans sat next to Other Alphys and watched the humans’ occasional movements, and whispers, too far away to hear. The air was thick and tension hung loudly, clouding vision until it was all a blur that barely made any sense at all. Hotlands was still outside. The King and Mettaton were still waiting for Frisk to arrive, and Papyrus was calling their phone occasionally.

“I l-love her,” said Other Alphys. “And I haven’t… and I d-didn’t tell her…”

“she knew,” Sans said.

“...How could you j-just forget about her?” she asked, turning to Alphys. “F-For somebody you don’t even know. For somebody who d-doesn’t even seem to care.”

Alphys didn’t have a great answer. She said, “I never forgot. I just… moved on. And I’m happier, now. I mean, besides the whole ‘being held hostage by an insane human with effective omniscience’ thing. That doesn’t mean that’s gotta be you, but…”

“I-It isn’t.” Other Alphys’ crying became silent.

Shaking hands. Shaking claws.

Lab was too warm. Forgot to turn down the thermostat.

I forgot to turn down the thermostat.

I’m tired. Could sleep. Nap right here, with everything going on.

OK.

Sans and Alphys watched Frisk talk to a wall, acting out scenarios, swapping between angry and calm. They couldn’t hear the words but could guess that they weren’t good ones.

“we’ve gotta find a way out of this,” he said to her.

“I know,” she said back.

But they couldn’t think of anything to do. Neither one could think with Frisk so close, getting closer, getting closer until they were standing over the three of them. Alphys and Sans rose to a standing position, but it was shaky.

“You didn’t have to tell me,” the human announced. It sounded recited.

“you asked us to, kiddo.”

Frisk shuddered. “You didn’t have to tell me about dead timelines. Now what am I gonna do?!”

They didn’t respond.

“Resetting is everything. Being able to go back, that’s everything to me. That WAS everything. The only way to have fun anymore. I’ve tried every single way to live in a timeline and it’s never enough, so I come back here and make you miserable and I make you happy, and after all of it, you’re trying to kill me. I caused your existence. And you tell me… about dead timelines. You didn’t have to tell me. Now… now what am I supposed to do if every time I reset, there’s a fifty-fifty chance I lose everything?!”

“We were just telling you the truth,” said Alphys. “P-Plus, if we didn’t tell you, you would have reset by now, and we’d be dead.”

“So?!” Frisk exclaimed, lunging forward, the trident now perfectly stabilized as it hung near Alphys’ neck, who stiffened up and jerked back. “I’m the only one that’s important! I’m the GOD of this place! I made you, I made you, I made you, and that means you should care about me before anyone else. Before yourselves, you little pathetic asshole cowards. Except you didn’t just do it for yourselves, huh?! Sans did it for HER.” They pointed at Other Alphys in the middle, whose eyes were trying to stay shut amidst the tears. She shook but attempted to look asleep.

“She’s only existed in this branch for an hour. She’s nothing to anyone. If I wanted, I could make a million more versions of her without even thinking about it. Except now it’d come with a risk. Except now I don’t have any of the things that make me alive.”

“she’s a person.”

Other Alphys died without pain. She was already willing. The small movements of Frisk’s newfound weapon were just enough to turn her from a wreck of a Monster to a pile of dust. Then, before either one of the duo could make a move, the trident struck them, too, perfectly weighted and shoved to knock them back down to- in Frisk’s mind- one point of health, one point of stamina. They sunk against the wall.

“I’ve been bouncing an idea around in my head. A little bit of… comeuppance, for what you’ve done to me. The way you’ve ruined my entire existence. I’ll throw you in the Core, just like Gaster fell in, and nobody will ever remember you or worry about you at all.”

Their expressions said so much. Suddenly the heavy thing in Other Alphys’ throat was in theirs, and the world shifted to another plane of being as they struggled to fight. They needed to fight, to run. They didn’t care if they were reset countless times, so long as they could live in at least one dead timeline. But no energy came. No movement. Fell down. Like usual, all they could do was speak.

“You c-can’t,” Alphys sputtered. “We’re not in our right timeline, w-we’re displaced! If you throw us in, i-it’ll… It might erase us from EVERYWHERE!”

Frisk smiled wide. “And, finally, those timelines will have a breath of fresh air.”

A voice in Sans’ head was saying, no, no no no, please.

No. I can’t lose this. I can’t lose her.

He couldn’t talk. He tried but he just fell down, and then he felt the grip of the trident around his spine dragging him forward, and he heard Alphys pleading and screaming, and along their knees there was dust, trailing along the floor of the lab. Frisk knew it was safe. Frisk knew that there was no way to lose, now.

Sans, it’s OK. Things are gonna be OK. He told himself, and his voice told himself, it’s gonna be OK. He went limp, forced himself to go limp as he felt the stones of Hotlands below him, scurrying by, scurrying toward things in the distance he could barely see. It hurt so he thought of things that didn’t hurt.

MK’s a good kid. Smart. He once surprised me by making a teleporter that didn’t tire people out, so anyone could travel long distances quickly. Even in the Underground, which is the smallest place in the world, and one of the loneliest, he’s one of the most lively and mature; one of the most smart and carefree; one of the most incredible and inspiring. He takes his work seriously, but he doesn’t take himself seriously. Stuff Gaster used to say about me.

The heat was getting worse. Swirling and stuffing things into themselves.

Alphys was pleading, “We don’t deserve this. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to forget somebody. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be lost!”

“Do you?” Frisk asked, chuckling.

“N-No,” she babbled. “But everything we know says it’s horrible. Everything we’ve heard tells me that nobody should be erased, not e-even somebody… not even somebody like YOU. I wouldn’t do it to you, F-Frisk! That’s how bad it is!”

“That’s why I hate you, yeah. Because you’re weak for no reason. Because you’re weak on principle.”

Then Alphys yelled something, and Sans was away.

Then Frisk said something, and Sans was further away.

Then Alphys yelled something, and Sans was far away.

Then Frisk said something, and Sans was so far away, so far away, so far away.

What is it like for Gaster? I wonder if he’s scared. I wonder if he’s lonely. I hope he knows I remember him, because if I was in his position, like I’m about to be, that’s all I would care about.

Maybe after we’re gone we’ll get to see him. Maybe it’s some kind of afterlife.

No, probably not.

No, we’ll just be dead.

Alphys spoke something into his ear, and he liked the sound of her voice, and stood up. The trident loosened around his neck.

“Ready to stand, lazy?” Frisk asked.

“uh-huh.”

In front of them was the Core, and it was infinitely tall. Frisk said, “I called some people here, like your brother and Mettaton, while you were napping.”

“I t-tried to stop them,” said Alphys. “I tried. I tried…”

A few Monsters were gullible and came to the entrance of the Core, and Frisk turned them to dust in half a moment each, and it included Papyrus and Mettaton and Gerson, and people from the hotel, and people from Snowdin and Waterfall and most of all Hotlands. Alphys and Sans just watched, they just watched, and she whimpered and his unending grin stood still. Each death was an airbag hitting him as hard as it could, and nothing lessened the blow, and his eyes were empty.

“That’s all of them,” said Frisk. “I think that’s pretty much everyone who’s coming.”

The ordeal took about an hour. They had long since run out of breath to yell.

If I can just get the ring. If I can just get that ring I might be able to get us out of here, for just a second, but I’d never even get the ring. I don’t have any energy. I don’t have any power. If I try to teleport away from the Core, I won’t make it.

Oh, but Sans realized that he wouldn’t make it either way. So he started to remember that time in Snowdin, in front of Grillby’s, clutching the wound in his sternum and waiting for his phone to ring, and thinking, hey. Six hours ago, that’s all that matters. If I imagine that I’m here, six hours ago, I can be calm. I can go. I can just go.

The hallways of the Core ran by without him noticing.

Places he’d never been, as well as places he hadn’t been for years. They came with memories attached, like, that’s where Alphys once dumped ramen all over herself and said it was part of her outfit. She lost that confidence, that security, for so long. He kept telling her she was capable of laughing off mistakes, that she was capable of living with mistakes. Eight years of an uphill battle, and every moment was hard, and every moment was worth the effort.

Memories attached, like, this is the last memory of this place I’ll ever have. Is this what dying people think before they die? What are ‘last memories’?

“Please. J-Just kill us normally. Don’t ruin every other timeline. You know you’d just r-regret erasing the possibilities you could have with us. As toys.”

“Maybe some better ones will open up once you’re gone. Or maybe I’ll just stick around in one for a while, taking it all in. Learning how much better things have become.”

The heat didn’t stop, it ramped up, it intensified. Sans lost his grip on Alphys’ hand, or had he been holding it at all? She kept pleading but her voice ran out, and she kept pleading for a while after that. He kicked up the dust of Papyrus behind him.

The heat didn’t stop.

The heat magnified.

The heat was everything Sans could comprehend, and then he was in a place with memories attached, and he said to Frisk, “you’re about to throw us in. can you at least give us a minute alone to talk?” It was crystal clear and calm. He looked calm.

“...Eh. Why not. Go stand in that corner of the room and whisper.”

This is the room next to the cafeteria. When Gaster was still here, the Core wasn’t so damn hot. This is the room next to the very center of everything. Alphys and Sans limped to a place in the room where their voices wouldn’t be heard.

He said, “i can get you out. even if it’s only in a few dead timelines, i can give you a shortcut. it’ll kill me but at least you’ll escape. at least you might escape.”

“E-Even… even if that would work…” Her eyes welled with tears that were nothing but exhaustion, raw and intense. “I can’t. I won’t lose you. You lost me and I-I’ve seen what that’s like. I’m… we’re not gonna get separated again, OK?”

“al…”

“I love you. Christ, I love you more than anything in the entire world, in any world, in every world. There’s nothing you could say or do that would make it worth only one of us dying. I-If we’re… if this is going to happen, we’re going together.”

He grinned. Couldn’t stop grinning. Felt more honest. “th-that’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard.”

“I know.” Alphys laughed.

Then Frisk came with the metal blur that was death, and they thought about fighting it, but it was a fleeting thought and then they were being pushed toward the door and then through the door, and it felt like all the particles in the universe were melting.

Alphys stepped forward, and noticed that there was an edge. All at once, the dimensions of the massive, seemingly endlessly wide room revealed themselves. A small curved platform without railing and a catwalk curling around each side of the massive cylinder descending toward the heart of the Core. Claws an inch from falling. Sans walked up next to her and clutched her hand, and it only drew her closer to the edge, instead of further. She was staring into the abyss in the garbage dump, except now it was looking back.

“What do you call this room?” asked Frisk mockingly. “The Core of the Core?”

\--

Alphys remembered.

She remembered how W. D. Gaster was a particularly tall Monster. Admittedly, most Monsters were bigger than her, but he stood out. Maybe because of how much of her time she spent admiring that height, and the kind of power it carried. She had never actually measured him but the Royal Scientist used his shadow as his actual physical stature, and that was the version that people recognized. In some ways, although Gaster might have been relatively short, he had come to seem very tall.

Although, bent over and staring at the hazy yellow pit at the bottom, her head stood above his, if only for a second. Then she stepped forward and stared at the brightness of it, awestruck and shaken instantly.

“W-What is it, exactly?” she asked him.

“The Core of the Core,” Gaster announced. Alphys laughed. “It’s why we’ve been making parts for the past few months. Now it’s all come together. With this in place, we’re actually generating power.”

“Y’know, the whole reason Asgore asked us to make the Core, that’s over with, now.”

“Correct. Now it’s just refinement and streamlining. Won’t be long until we can hop onto another project.”

“That’s good! I th-think Sans is starting to get antsy about this one.”

“Well,” the Royal Scientist said, “he’s never been much of a fan of the heat.”

“Makes two of us. W-We learned a lot from this, though.”

“Not to mention that we’ve given the Underground the power it needs. I believe that’s the more valuable thing to take from this.”

“Oh, y-yeah! For sure.”

She blinked. In one moment, the infinite brightness was dark, and then it returned.

“This, uh… l-looks kinda dangerous, G. Maybe you should put a railing here.”

“We’re nearly done, don’t worry. I’ll have one of the workers put one here later, but for now, it makes for a great observation platform.”

“Yeah,” said Alphys. “It does.”

“You’re off the hook for today, if you’d like to go eat something,” said Gaster. “And when Sans gets back, tell him I’m waiting for him out here.”

“Uh-huh. I just wanna… watch it for a few minutes.”

The Core of the Core swirled around like a soup, cascading and filling and emptying, all in seconds. The heat powered the collector arrays on each side, and from there it was converted to electricity, of which it had far too much. Gaster had designed it to be modular, with room to increase output. The initial stages were all about building parts for the very center, and he insisted--more. More. More.

It paid off handily. The King could probably run ten particle accelerators at once without any problem. Or, at least, that’s how Gaster exaggerated it.

He used to spend days and days alone in his office, writing plans, drawing blueprints. He would bring in Alphys and Sans together to look over parts, as they watched over his shoulder and he sat back in his rickety office chair with a resounding series of creaks. Rarely did the plans have mistakes, and even when they did, it was a little hard to announce them. Although Gaster loved criticism, he never showed it.

“For all the effort we’ve put in, a few minutes is more than appropriate,” he said, smirking.

“I never thought we’d actually finish it, y-you know? I never thought we’d get this far.”

Gaster reminded her, “We can still do some optimization. We’re not done yet.”

“R-Right.”

“Maybe I will show Papyrus, as well. You know how much he’s been hounding us for answers. Phone him when you get the chance.”

“Okay, yeah. He’ll flip out when he sees the whole Core.”

He patted her back, startling her a little, but not enough to send her tumbling off the edge. “Everyone in the Underground will.”

Eventually she took it all in, and left Gaster standing on the edge, both his hands marked with a hole in the palm and wrapped around his back. He kept watching the immense machine churn and churn, until he was outside of sight, and Alphys strolled down two rooms into the cafeteria. Her coworkers had already gone home, the lot of them. Good friends, but they weren’t quite as close to Gaster as she was; after all, he had practically raised her. And Sans.

But he had gone off somewhere and said he’d be back soon, so she vended a bowl of ramen and sat at a table alone, facing the large metal door. Quiet like a mouse until it slid open ten minutes after she’d first entered, and she was already expecting Sans who emerged from the open entrance, his posture a little more limp than usual. She grinned wide upon seeing him and motioned for him to come closer, which he did.

“hey,” he said.

“Hey, uh, G wants you in the main r-room whenever you get the chance.”

“can it wait?”

“...Yeah, sure. He’s just looking at stuff, anyway.”

Sans sat in front of Alphys. The metal dug into his pants and didn’t fit well with his labcoat, but he’d gotten used to the uncomfortable feeling. “i’ve just, uh. been thinking. do you think…” He paused and tried to breathe. His eyes were dim, and that was the only indicator that he was feeling stressed. “do you think we’d do good in some kinda relationship? i mean, we’ve known each other forever. and we’re… friends. but friends are supposed to get together eventually, right?”

Alphys chuckled without meaning to. “I mean… I don’t know if they’re SUPPOSED to, unless it’s, like, bad fanfiction or something.”

“oh.” He lowered his head a little.

“B-But… that’s not what I mean! I… Sans, I mean, w-we’re…” She struggled to find the right words. “I’ve b-been thinking the same kinds of things. I just… if we do something together, it should be because we want to, not because we’re supposed to, y’know what I mean?”

“yeah. yeah, that makes a lot more sense. i need to stop getting worked up over this sort of stuff.”

“Eh. I know it’s not your style.” She reached forward and took his hand, cold as bone, from under the table and set it on top. Almost knocked over the cup of ramen, which made them both laugh. “We’re free tonight. M-Maybe we can just… figure it out, together. Good timing, too, s-since the Core is basically done.”

“oh man, really? thought i’d never hear those words.”

“Yeah! That’s what G wanted to talk to you about. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

He stood up slowly, surprised with how short his stay had been. He was still panting a little bit from anxiety, but it flooded away. “i’ll be right back.” She grinned wide, and for a second Sans took in every detail. Calm. Collected. A little out of it, but not too far that he couldn’t reel her back again. He still had the memory. The mental image. Her in her chair. Alphys in her chair, then Alphys in her throne.

Memory of a timeline that he could never go back to, no matter how much effort he dedicated to the task or how much technology he had.

Sans walked away, and that was the last time Alphys saw him for a very long time. He exited. He went out to the big room, and then his excited footsteps surprised Gaster, and Gaster fell into the Core, and because he saw Gaster fall in, he was the only one who remembered being jerked suddenly from his place at the top of the world to Snowdin.

To Old Sans.

Back to,

You’re incapable of expressing your emotions except through jokes.

You have interesting qualities but it’s easier to present them as quirks.

You only care about your brother, and nobody else.

You spend too much time sleeping.

You love her, but she doesn’t care.

You hate yourself.

But Alphys didn’t see or remember any of this.

Alphys saw him walk out, and that was the last thing she ever saw.

\--

She turned to him on the platform, staring at the swirling glowing mass, and said, “I remember.”

He said, “what? what do you remember?”

“Everything,” said Alphys.

The trident prodded them in the back and forced them off the edge.

Then, that was the last thing she ever said.

Then, that was the last thing she ever thought.

Then,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still more to go.


	8. Room 336

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys and Sans do not exist. After his best friend goes missing, MK becomes determined to find answers to the questions that have plagued him his entire life.

(I need to get to the Core.)

MK ran. He struggled for breath as the rain and the darkness hit him, and he surveyed his environment as it sped by and was replaced with a new one. Grass, trees. Water. Mud. A hill in the distance. It was chasing after him, he could hear its footsteps and its shadow looming not with a knife but with only a shadow that terrified him to the core. The core.

To the core. He couldn’t get that word out of his head. He couldn’t focus on it. MK ran. MK ran. MK ran.

He didn’t have a heart but he had a soul and his soul was thumping through his chest, and his shirt was flying in the heavy wind, and his eyes stayed closed and then stayed open because he couldn’t see where he was going. MK’s long strides didn’t remotely match up to the ones from behind, but that soul kept beating. Thump. Thump thump. Stay alive, stay awake. He felt shaken, he was shaking, shaken to the core, to the core, to the core. (I need to get to the Core. That’s what I was saying to Asriel before it grabbed him.)

(Did he manage to break its grip and run? I shouldn’t have left him behind.)

(He’s my friend. Friends protect friends. No, no, no no no…)

He was drifting away from his thoughts, and then MK was drifting away from where he had been a moment before to scramble up the hill in front of him. No arms to keep balance, but he had learned to use his tail for movement, over those years of loneliness in the leaderless Underground, in another ending far away. And he had learned to run in the wilderness from the year and a half in that other place, that place where the King had died. But both of them were infinitely far away, and so were his thoughts, and the figure behind him was only getting closer. So MK kept sprinting up the slope until his body felt like it had emptied.

At the top. Short breaths. Had he had hands he might have grabbed a particularly sharp looking rock or branch off the ground and swung it at the figure climbing after him--or not climbing after him, he couldn’t see. He could barely see anything except the world, which swerved in every direction, a palish blue amidst trees and cityscape. The city. Salvation. He couldn’t remember in his haste why Asriel and him had trekked so far out. Maybe they needed the isolation, like Chara in another ending needed that grave in the middle of nowhere.

Big city. Lights. On in the middle of the night, on like an infinite motherboard of lightbulbs in the distance. His claws sunk into the mud and he thought, for a moment, standing his ground. Maybe he could conjure enough magic to fend off his attacker. But something told him it wouldn’t work. He had, once, witnessed Papyrus fight a human with all the energy he had, and only barely come out alive. If it was a human he was up against, MK wouldn’t stand a chance. It would be a risk. It would be too much of a risk to bear, so he stumbled forward searching for an escape, and there it was, sitting in the distance. Rain pelted the top of his head and made him freeze, but he could still see what remained of home, and he ran toward it.

(Az is strong. He got away.)

(Probably.)

He ran toward the city in the distance until he was sure the thing behind him had stopped running, and then he ran for a little while after that, tripping and tumbling until he had lost footing and lost his way and then lost his sight and then lost his thoughts of the core, of his core, of the Core.

The black dark and blurry blue flashed between each other as MK fell in silence until he was at the bottom of the hill, battered, exhausted. Water hit his head like machinegun fire, chattering in perfect disharmony until he succumbed to the spot in the wet earth and felt his beady eyes turn to camouflage.

(In his peripheral, he thinks for a moment he sees something in the distance--wavering, shadowy figures in an unfamiliar pattern, sidestepping over one another like ghosts.)

(No, not figures. Just one.)

Then, MK was warm.

Then, MK was tired, and sleeping sound.

Then, MK was awake.

All in seconds.

He couldn’t feel the passage of time but it was light that woke him up, sunlight instead of moonlight, and he could feel the gentle caress of blankets and a comforter over him. When he sunk back he didn’t find mud but instead a mattress, and when he sat up he had energy that he’d spent only moments earlier. Or, at least, what MK felt was moments earlier. He couldn’t see the outside very well, because the windows of the clinic faced every which way randomly, not suited to the bright rays of the morning. This was how MK deduced that this wasn’t a human-built structure but one from a Monster, one who didn’t go by the same conventions or experience, one who had been used to living underground where there was no sunlight to redirect. For some, this might have been something to worry about, but he had never particularly trusted humans, save for one.

In the bed adjacent to him was somebody immensely small. Although MK wasn’t incredible with names, he recognized it as Cinnamon, the tiny bunny from Snowdin. If he were to wake up, the two could talk endlessly about that far-gone dead timeline, since they had both come from there. But he decided to stay silent as he slipped from the covers and onto the cold wooden ground. He warmed himself slightly with a spell, then made the considerable effort of straightening his shirt and lurching toward the center of the room, where there was an opening in the clinic and a door. Monsters heal quickly; MK was dumbfounded how one could need so much room. He bit the knob and slid open an entrance slowly, his guard still up from the night before.

As he approached the hallway timidly, he realized that the room behind him was built onto the side of a bigger establishment, one which bustled and rocked back and forth like a boat on the high seas. In every entrance to his right or left he saw a personal room or some sort of storage, of makeshift, tiny barracks and weapons of stable magic. Although it was no bigger than a townhouse it felt like a labyrinth, and with occasional voices emanating from the walls, muffled yet audible, he tried to keep himself silent and cautious. Had he escaped? It certainly felt like he had. Yet with every step MK made, he felt like he could feel danger looming around the corners of the building. He explored and travelled and peeked down each doorway until he reached what looked very much like a dining room, repurposed and rebuilt many times that the only thing that retained its shape was a modest, rectangular wooden table, adorned with a cloth covering with an image of a fish. He recognized it because, in his stupor after the events in the Underground, he had visited Undyne’s house first, still in denial that she had died in front of his eyes.

It turned out that denial couldn’t help. MK had felt his soul snap in two when he walked into her house for the first time since the massacre. The lights were on; from the outside it appeared as if nobody was gone and that at any moment the sound of piano could erupt from within. Yet immediately he knew that something was wrong. Yet immediately he knew that everything was wrong.

But now Undyne was in perfect health. She had noticed his presence and in mere moments had melted an egg with a bout of fire magic she had learned from Toriel, shell and all, and placed it into a frying pan where it had simmered for five seconds with the heat and fury of the sun. She tossed it with a spin to keep it stable, skittering onto the table and seemingly leaving a trail of sparks, and said, “Glad you’re finally awake! Just made breakfast.”

“W-Woah,” MK stammered. “Uh… thanks?”

“You’ve gotta be starving! I mean, you were in really bad shape when Papyrus found you. Took a big stumble down a hill. Thankfully he’s the best rescue-er in the entire Royal Guard!”

MK eased up and approached the table, still facing Undyne, whose smile was toothy and massive as always. “Yeah, I know. He’s kinda helped me out before.”

As if reminded by the sound of his voice, her tone suddenly changed. “You’re… from the other timeline, right?”

That image of her, leaping in front of Frisk’s attack. That moment hung in the air and they could both see it like an apparition.

“...Yeah. S-So’s Cinnamon, I saw him in the bed next to mine.”

Undyne’s grin faltered and then returned in full form. “Well, you’re probably starving! Go ahead and dig in!”

MK took a few steps forward and towered over the pan, simmering and bubbling with the terrifying mess of cooked and uncooked egg. Not only did it look far from appetizing, but also incredibly difficult to eat in his usual manner. If he stuck his face into the swirling mess, he’d probably burn his cheeks off. Undyne, never one to give up on her own cooking, shook open a counter, grabbed a fork, and stuck it out for him to grab. Although MK’s tail was far from prehensile, it had become second nature for him to use it as a handhold. He turned to the side a bit, wrapped the end against the handle, and took a moment to adjust its weight in his favor. “Nice one, kid! Sometimes I wish I had a tail. Then I could swing three swords at once!”

He chuckled. “Is this place, like, the new Royal Guard?”

“Yup! We don’t do a lotta fighting anymore, but there are still tons of Monsters that need our help. Like you!” MK reached into the frying pan carefully with his tail, impaling a small bit of messy egg with his fork and pulling it from the rest. It jiggled like a jelly and looked like it was still struggling to scramble itself together, but managed to hold form as he swung it toward his mouth and chomped, nearly nicking his tail. The taste was… indescribable.

“I thought you usually made spaghetti,” said MK, swallowing. “Isn’t that the Royal Guard signature dish?”

“Well, according to the King and Queen, spaghetti isn’t a… ‘morning meal’. Which is bonkers, because it’s supposed to be an EVERYTHING meal. Oh well.”

“Bet that was hard for Papyrus to take,” he murmured, taking another oversaturated bite of egg. He was in a hurry, but he couldn’t remember why.

“Oh, you bet! Used to be that he stayed here and made ten bowls full every morning.” Undyne leaned forward, whispering conspicuously, “Now he does all my before-noon chores for me instead.”

“Wow,” said MK, swallowing a mouthful of the mess. A sharp piece of eggshell slid against his throat and he nearly coughed it up. Eating was getting harder with each bite, but he was starving and not unfamiliar with eating subpar monster food.

“So, kid. When did Papyrus help you out before?”

“It’s… kind of a long story.”

She laughed. “I’m the best long story listener of all time! C’mon.”

“W-Well, uh…” MK thought about it for a little while, trying to pick a good place to start, and then cleared his throat. He was still recovering from having fallen unconscious, and stumbled over a number of things. “A while ago, Papyrus found this, like, method to… he made a machine to get to other timelines. K-Kind of like the one I’m from, but ALL sorts of places, good and bad. He was, like, a time cop. Going to other timelines and trying to save people or make stuff better, y’know? One day he came to this place where Asgore, uh… had died. And, I mean, lots of stuff was different. Then I think a human transported my mind back here with all my memories. It’s a li’l hazy, but yeah.”

Undyne’s expression only got more excited. “You’re kidding me. He NEVER told me any of that!”

“It’s true, I swear. He wants it to be a secret, for... some reason? I mean, I’ve only told Frisk and…”

(And Asriel.)

(Asriel.)

“I… I--” He was sputtering to speak at all. “I was running from something! Somebody w-was chasing me and Asriel at that hill, a-and I lost him, a-and…”

She grabbed the sides of his shirt suddenly and stared into his eyes. “Slow down. What do you mean?”

“Az needs… he needs help. We gotta go back there and find him.”

“What was chasing you?”

“I d-don’t know! We couldn’t see!”

He lost his appetite. He’d been kicked down a hill again, just as quickly as he had settled down and become calm, tumbling into a spiral of panic and worry that he still wasn’t used to feeling. The boat of the world rocked back and forth and as he sputtered more explanations Undyne called somebody important on her phone, who said they would go to the hill and search. The sound of MK’s own voice gradually moved away from his body until he could only hear his breath and the vague, blob-like sound of his wailing.

Then, that was the last he saw of the Royal Guard’s barracks, and Undyne carried him above her head into one of the cars along the front. He only caught a glimpse of the city and his eyes didn’t communicate with his brain, because he was thinking, because he couldn’t stop thinking, Asriel is dead. He’s dead. He’s probably dead or hurt and it’s my fault for leaving him and running away, now it’s been an entire night and I’m never gonna see him again.

Asriel had never been destined or fated to become MK’s friend. They only knew each other in the dead timeline for a matter of months, and even then, neither was in a perfect state. However, something indescribable kept them together, just as it had with Frisk, the Frisk who arrived to save them from starving, the Frisk who arrived to save him from his agony as a flower. The three had their own problems, their own loneliness. Yet for a few months in the Underground they found solace in each other’s company. When Frisk forgot about it all, the trio broke, and then it was only MK and Asriel, alone together, still alone even though everyone came with them. What mystified him was how he survived before meeting Asriel and Frisk. Nearly nine years in total, and he spent eight of them alone.

Alone, and happy.

He didn’t know why. His memories were jumbled and faded for no reason, but throughout all of those years MK was the happiest he had ever been.

He leaned forward and stared around, trying to figure out the details of the car he was trapped in on his own volition, but as a Monster and especially as a young Monster, vehicles had come to seem very similar and impossible to tell apart from one another. “We’re going to the hill, right? R-Right?”

Undyne nodded sharply. “Told the human Royal Guard, too. Or, uh, whatever they call it. They’ll get there before us.” She paused, and turned away from the road that MK couldn’t see, looking at him and putting on a reassuring expression. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s the son of Asgore, for crying out loud.”

“Yeah,” MK said. “E-Even kings die sometimes.”

With eyes that were getting more and more uncertain, Undyne said, “Don’t think about it like that, kid. We’re gonna do our best to find him.”

She parked on the edge of the grass, inches away from kicking up mud, and peered toward the hill which was already half-encompassed in cars that were flashing their lights red-and-blue. The Royal Guard never needed lights or colors to identify themselves; a Monster knew any other Monster was a member simply by the emanation of their soul. For some, that was intimidating. For others, reassuring. The same applied for the humans’ own guard, and it didn’t calm him at all.

Parked by the road was the King and Queen in separate cars. Their relationship was still something MK had trouble comprehending, but to find Asriel they were equals. With them was Frisk, whose terrified expression overshadowed anyone else’s.

“I-I heard,” said Frisk to MK, their voice shaky. The two followed their respective guardians toward the hill and around the hill and down the hill, scouring, watching, yelling for the Prince’s name. “I heard you saw who did this.”

“Didn’t get a good look,” MK replied.

“Whoever did this, they’re gonna pay.”

And it didn’t help.

The landscape looked different during the day, being prowled by dozens of figures both near and far. Undyne was one of them, spear in hand (though it wouldn’t do anything against a human opponent, MK knew that much) and her voice constantly searching for a response. She shouted, “Asriel!” She shouted, “Asriel!” She shouted, “Asriel!”

And it didn’t help.

For an hour Asgore and Toriel, not hand-in-hand but soul-and-soul, were searching with hurried gaits and eyes that grew tired at twenty times the normal pace. MK and Asriel hadn’t even gone far together, they’d barely strayed from the road before being chased, but still the walking heads scoured for the Prince who was royalty and exceedingly important, and still they asked MK question after question, to which he replied, “I don’t know! I don’t know what it was, if it even was a person, a-and yeah, Asriel still looks like that, in that picture. Yo, how am I supposed to know where he went?! I told you I j-just… I just ran away!”

And it didn’t help.

“I shouldn’t have, though, I shouldn’t have run away,” he said. Now he was saying it to Undyne, now he was almost crying, now he was filled with regret and guilt, spiralling out of control, too immobile to stabilize. She did her best to help, but enthusiasm seemed like the wrong thing to have.

“You couldn’t have done anything, alright? The fact that you got out of there means that you were able to tell everyone what happened. S-So we can find him easier. You did the right thing, MK.”

And it didn’t help.

He needed to breathe, he needed comfort in the sea that was going crazy with waves of light. He said to Frisk, “A-Asriel is strong, right? Like in the timeline I told you about. W-Where Papyrus helped me.”

Then, Frisk said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about? What timeline? You never told me about that.”

And it didn’t help.

The humans’ royal guard- who MK guessed was the ‘police’ people kept talking about- told Asgore and Toriel to calm down, to not overwork themselves, told them that they already had three dozen people scouting in every direction and they were only really getting in the way. But the King and Queen were filled with a panic they couldn’t describe, and their souls shook with anxiety, and they took Frisk with them as they kept venturing further and further away, searching for a clue, searching for hope.

But MK was lucid, and he was lucid enough to know that the best he could do was wait.

(I have to get to the Core.)

And it didn’t help.

Undyne asked, “Do you have somewhere to stay? Home?”

“I had one in Waterfall, but, uh… not any more.”

She beamed as best she could. “You can stay with me with the Royal Guard for now, kiddo. ‘Til we find him.” Phrased it like they would find him. Like they would. Like they would ever be able to.

MK felt himself walk, and then made himself walk, away from everything behind him including the hill of mud and grass and humanity’s guard, still scattered and scattering like ants. The figure of Undyne was like a skyscraper above him, and though he had learned at an early age to take care of himself, she was protecting him simply in the way she walked. It felt like she was armored, even though she’d forgotten to put said armor on. Shivering, MK was lead back to the car and stuffed inside by his own volition, and he restlessly sat against the back of his front seat, staring out the windshield as Undyne tried and tried to seem composed.

And then things were fine.

Pulled by strings, and he was comfortable being pulled. Sat on the bed; near the bed; around the bed; in the bed. Cinnamon was still next to him, sleeping sound as the world moved by him. MK remarked that the little thing in that bed was the smallest Monster he had ever seen. If he wanted, he could crawl out and hide in a vent until everything ended, or until Asriel showed up giggling and laughing that he just got a little lost, and yeah, he was fine, and yeah, It’s so good to see you three. Snapped back. Rows of blankets and mattresses, none of which were meant for one person in particular, so they sat very plainly blue and melted into the scenery, same as ever. Along the walls were paintings that Undyne could have just as easily made windows, to make the room less cramped, and along the floor was the kind of carpet that could be matched with any other in any other time. It matched the tone and lighting of a human’s building, so orthodox and simple, that it felt less like a place to rest and more like a place to stare around, wide-eyed and glaring, and that’s what MK did.

For what felt like forever.

Undyne’s voice came from the hallway and the other rooms, as she scoured the house, as she called for Papyrus’ name, but it wasn’t heard by anyone except MK. He heard her dial Papyrus’ number and he never picked up, and she shouted, at first with frustration and anger which quickly devolved into worry, worry because she was not used to losing contact with people, worry that quickly devolved into a frantic pace the kind that nobody could follow. She was stomping around the house (building? barracks?) with fervor, calling all members of the Royal Guard, and rounding them up like sheep as her veins boiled.

“Papyrus is missing,” she announced to the crowd. MK could tell it was a crowd because they walked and breathed like a crowd. His shirt felt like it had a hole in it, like somebody had stabbed him in a hurry, but as he checked, it was only a feather poking through the striped fabric, having emerged from his pillow. He plucked it out with his teeth and spat it onto Cinnamon’s comforter. If it were Asriel, they would’ve both laughed.

He thought about everything. He had a lot of time to think.

I need to get to the Core, he thought. He had said that to Asriel, then he shouted, ‘behind you!’ and something with an arm the length of a spear had grasped the collar of his shirt and dragged him into the dark, and then the light, and then the dark, as they skirted across moonlight and streetlight and flashlight, and as MK ran, and as MK ran. He thought about that, and then he thought about how he had said,

I need to get to the Core.

Nobody knew who made the Core. Nobody knew why or how it worked, or why the Underground still had power, or who had hired the dozens of Monsters who operated its machinery. There was a laboratory in Hotlands with nobody operating it, an empty interior that had been stripped bare and an elevator that lead to a treasure-trove of horrible monsters which died the moment Asgore went to investigate, much to his horror and confusion. Nobody knew who had built any of the many things that made the Underground function and nobody ever questioned it, except MK, who had been told in a trance that,

I need to get to the Core.

The sequence of events leading up to that realization were hazy and grew weak. Six hours before that thing grabbed Asriel, and everything seemed happier. Everything seemed better. A cut-off point at noon on a Tuesday where the world fell apart even though it hadn’t changed. Then, six hours later, he was told by himself, and he listened to himself, and he thought and he wondered and he whispered,

I need to get to the Core.

Soul- or heart- was pounding, and he was tired, but as time passed and countless minutes passed, and as it had been an hour since he left the hill, MK grew enough energy to leave the room of beds and silently crack open the door that lead into the hallway.

There was a collection of dozens of members of the old Royal Guard, armed, armor resting on their shoulders, or at least their back if they didn’t have shoulders; their demeanor was orderly and fixated on the figure in the front of the house, Undyne, who stood on a soapbox-looking crate and was announcing and shouting as best she could.

“It’s been eighteen hours since the string of disappearances started. First it was old Gerson and the Nice Cream Man, but now the prince and our very own Papyrus have gone missing, along with eight others. This isn’t something we can stand for anymore! The humans have their formal way of searching, but we’re Monsters! Together, we’re going to find them, and strike down the one who has taken them. We’re going to save Papyrus, we’re going to save Asriel, we’re going to save the Monsters whose souls we have in common more than anyone!”

She sure was good at riling up a crowd.

Amidst shouting and cheering they streamed out the door, with the dogs first and then the scouts and watchers, all directed with maps and instructions, all with a motivation to preserve everyone’s life except that perpetrator whose name and appearance they didn’t know. MK was terrified, he was shivering from fear as it passed through him like a sickness. Nobody needed to die. He still wasn’t even sure somebody had been chasing him. Of course it had, but… what if he had simply been tricked by the light? What if nobody was responsible? He couldn’t reach his hand out in plea, because he lacked hands, so his shirt bounced up and down as he followed the cacophony of metal-on-metal until the last one prepared to exit through the front entrance, and it was Undyne.

“Please,” he said, “don’t just go out blindly.”

She stopped in the doorway, shut it, and her excited expression faded immediately. “We’re not, I promise. We’re searching in grids.”

“S-So… blindly?”

With a sigh, Undyne walked over to the table and sat, her armor heavy. “I guess. But not STUPIDLY. We’re doing the best we can, y’know? The humans could use some help on that.”

“We should look… not-so-blindly, though. What kinda stuff was Papyrus doing in the morning?”

“He left about three hours before you woke up. Just… safe stuff. Stuff that was, like, a ten minutes’ walk away. Clearing rubble at Ebott, greeting the King and Queen, buying flowers… maybe the flower lady kidnapped him?”

“N-No,” said MK.

And then he thought.

He thought, I’m going crazy. Frisk forgot all about what I told them. Frisk forgot about the Kills of Chara, even though I explained every detail, even though they listened intently and asked hundreds of questions. I thought I was going crazy. But Frisk lives with the King and Queen in that big house, and, and…

What was wrong with Frisk? What was Frisk trying to hide?

“What if he’s in the Royal House?”

Undyne scoffed. “He would have answered his phone. Ever since he played Hide and Seek for an entire day, he’s promised me to never keep it off.”

He stared up, and then stared down. His eyes were certain, but he feigned uncertainty. “Y-Yeah, but… somebody in the house could’ve taken him.”

“The only people who live there anymore is the royal family. Asriel’s missing, too, and Frisk’s just a kid! Are you saying the King and Queen could’ve…”

“I m-mean, maybe! It’s worth looking, right?”

Undyne took a deep breath, considering. “It’s worth a look, I guess, if it makes ya feel better. We can walk there together.”

“Okay,” said MK. “T-Thanks. It just… i-it feels right.”

She grinned. “Gut instincts are a sign that you’re a true member of the Guard! You should sign up, someday.”

“Maybe later.”

His light voice carried them both out the door, but not in the direction of the rest of the group. Instead they trailed along one of the roads in the city, leading further out, leading so far out. In the afternoon light MK saw other Monsters, shorter and taller than him, and he had trouble paying attention to it all the way he used to. It was off. It was wrong. There was a dissonance to his footsteps and the footsteps of the people around him, until there weren’t people around him, and until it was just him and Undyne along the concrete leading far, far away from the skyscrapers and toward the King and Queen’s house, which towered over them like the Core in front of Hotlands’ magnificent view.

He reckoned that the place could fit five dozen people, yet only four people resided. It was off. It was wrong. There was a mismatch between the front door and what the front door was SUPPOSED to be. He reckoned that it should be open to anyone to visit, that there should be a room in the house that anyone could stay, and that two caretakers not by the names of Toriel and Asgore would take care of the children of the Underground. Yet that was not the house he was staring at. The house in front of him was one of royalty, and he was not royalty, so even as Undyne carefully propped open the door to its empty interior and welcomed herself home, he was lost, and his mind took him far away. Or, at least, further than usual.

“Seems empty,” she said. “Try not to wreck anything, OK?” The warning was directed at herself, mainly.

MK was breathing heavy and never felt like he was getting any air. “Might be empty. Might not be.”

So they scoured the hallways, the giant staircases and the empty space, and then they scoured the empty rooms, peeking in each door where there was supposed to be life but there was only silence. They looked in the Royal Bedroom, nervously checking each corner. Then it was the room of the kids, engulfed in darkness. Undyne moved on immediately, sensing no presence, but MK’s soul- heart!- skipped a beat.

“Here,” he said.

“It’s just the kids’ bedroom.” Undyne flicked on the light, and it revealed nothing but their delicate bunk bed, a pair of dressers, a pair of desks and one singular closet, circling a rug in the center of the floor.

MK turned the handle of the closet and found nothing.

MK swung open all the drawers and nooks and crannies and found nothing.

MK peered under the bed. MK peered under the tables. MK peered under everything.

It told him, and it had to tell him,

(Then, that was the last thing she ever said.)

He was in a trance, and in his trance he kicked over the rug, and found a shoddily-built hatch leading under the house.

(Then, that was the last thing she ever thought.)

“I don’t… think that’s supposed to be there,” said Undyne.

“Yeah, I guess not,” said MK.

She knelt and undid the tiny metal lock on the trapdoor, her hands beginning to shake weakly, and she stuck her fingers under the wood, swinging it up. On the top of the door a very thin layer of muddy red powder slid off. Undyne jerked back. “What was that?!”

“I, uh…” He thought about it for a second. “Probably left there s-so that if the door was opened and closed again, the person would be able to know.”

“Why would Asriel need something like that?”

“Or… or Frisk.”

The dark of the pit in front of them was slowly revealed as their eyes adjusted. A short and half-steep stepladder led down into a tunnel-like room. While Undyne was still processing what she was seeing, MK had already begun to make his way below. “Hey, kid, wait!”

Shaking.

Shivering.

Cold.

“MK!” Undyne called. “MK, it could be dangerous! Wait for me!”

The light and dark blended together as MK stepped forward hazily, his eyes gone wild, and the tunnel which had been shoddily built slowly grew chaotic and wrapped around itself seemingly hundreds of times in the span of ten seconds before its dirt surface faded to an already-rotting wood, formed in a haste, and then it opened up, and then it opened up. He heard something, something that he recognized, and his shirt hit particles of dirt in the near-blackness. In front of him was an entrance to a cellar, one that had been built but walled off, and which had been broken into again for the space it held. He stepped inside the smashed-open stone wall and stared around the barely-lit interior, made bright only by a lantern sitting in the middle of it. To his right and left were cages. Steel horrific things of nightmares, big enough to hold even the largest Monster. And they held so many Monsters.

They looked hungry, but not starving. They looked a little hurt, but not by much. Their faces were reflected by the dim firelight, and MK stared in horror at each and every one. Gerson, whose old figure was used to captivity in all forms, who sat in the corner of his own cage shared by the Nice Cream Man, who noticed MK enter and had already begun pleading. “Oh, please, oh, hey! Hey, kid! Oh, no, are you here to hurt us?!”

“N-No!” He stumbled around, and heard Undyne fast in pursuit. The dozen Monsters began uproar as they noticed his arrival. A dozen Monsters including Asriel, who he met eyes with immediately. “We’re… we’re… what happened?! Who did this to you?!”

Asriel muttered, weakly but with hope, “Frisk.”

MK hurried forward and began to force the lock that held his best friend captive, and behind him, the tall figure of the head of the Royal Guard peered out, and gasped in surprise. WIthout a single question she immediately began to do the same. MK said, “Why?! Why would Frisk… Frisk’s our friend! Frisk’s known us forever!”

“No,” said Asriel, “not our Frisk.

“The other Frisk.”

From another cage in the back of the room, the one closest to the lone wooden chair that hung against a wall, a human child whose name was Frisk, propped their hands against the metal.

A frantic Undyne unlocked every cage by bashing her spear against the doors yelling, and the weary Monsters spilled out, and Papyrus spilled out, his form terrified and confused. In an instant she wrapped his arms around his bones, whispering, it’s going to be OK. It’s going to be OK. He took it pretty well.

MK and Asriel wrapped themselves around each other. “I-I’m sorry I ran,” he murmured.

Asriel said, “We’re OK. It’s OK.”

Undyne asked, “What was Frisk doing? This… ‘other Frisk’. What the heck does that even mean?”

The prince cleared his throat and spoke as calmly as he could. “We… got here, and Frisk had been… just… I don’t even know. Pulling us out to put us in that chair, and asking us questions. Weird questions. Asking us… if we knew who the ‘Royal Scientist’ was. And when we said we didn’t, Frisk just laughed really hard. There’s no such thing, r-right? There’s no such thing as a Royal Scientist. Then Frisk would hit some of us to s-stop us from talking anymore, I guess. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve… e-ever been through.” He coughed and pointed shakily toward Frisk in the cage. “But… Frisk did it to, uh, Frisk, too. And Frisk didn’t know, either. I kn-know that’s really hard to, uh, explain. But you get what I’m saying, right? It’s like they’re different people.”

It took MK only seconds to realize.

He stood up further, his breath tightened. He said to Frisk, “Your p-power, yo.”

“I promised I’d never use it!” the human screeched out.

“Yeah… yeah, and you wouldn’t be able to, anyway, right? Is it gone?”

Frisk took a deep breath. “...It is. It might be. I don’t feel it anymore.”

The entire room looked at him, puzzled.

“I’ve… I’ve seen this before. In another ending. B-Back there, with the Kills of Chara, that whole thing. Papyrus had to stop a reset, because back there, the human had that power. Technically, there were… two Papyrus-es. Because, y’know, he used a thing to get to another timeline, or, uh… W-What I’m saying is, the other Frisk has gotta have the power to reset.”

Although for most, these words seemed insane, and the concept of a ‘reset’ foreign, Gerson, Asriel and the Nice Cream Man had been from the same place MK was. The dead timeline, the earthquake, the eight years of abandonment. And they knew he was right. And all at once the three of them realized the danger they had suddenly been plummeted into.

Gerson said, “What happened to us before will happen to us again. When Frisk finds that we have been released, they will cause yet another catastrophe.” His figure was elderly but not for lack of strength, and he forced open Frisk’s cage, and the human stumbled out with his guidance.

The Monsters in the room began getting worked up. They asked and they shouted their questions and where Asriel and MK lost the voice to speak, Gerson answered instead. He was never one to allow confusion, when his life was so filled with wisdom and information. However, with the threat looming so close, he had trouble mustering the effort.

MK eventually said, “Frisk went with Asgore and Toriel to… look for you, Az. And that’s gonna be a while. But once they get done and drive back home, o-or if Frisk captures them, too… then they’ll find out we were here.”

“How long do you think w-we’ve got?” asked Asriel.

“Maybe a couple hours.”

Undyne turned to MK, still clutching Papyrus by the arm, his cracked bones paining him, but not enough to keep him from being optimistic. She asked, “Any good ideas on how to stop them, kid?”

MK considered for a while. His mind swirled with thoughts, all of which were terrible and fearful. The pressure of time weighed down on him like a boulder, and in doing so, pushed him to the outer reaches of his mind. The stupidest notions, the craziest ones. And he thought, and he had to think,

I need to get to the Core.

“There’s g-gotta be a Royal Scientist,” he said. “Frisk must’ve known about one. And I c-can’t get it out of my head, that I need to get to the Core. Maybe the Royal Scientist built the Core, right?”

“But there ISN’T a Royal Scientist,” said Asriel. Frisk panted and sat up against a wall as Undyne shot between every injured person. “There’s never been a Royal Scientist in the history of… ever.”

“So why would a time-travelling human go to all that effort just to, y’know, ask pointless questions? M-Maybe they aren’t completely pointless.”

The prince breathed in the musty air and sighed. “I guess that makes sense. D-Do you think it’s worth a shot? Going to the Core?”

MK said, “It’s only five minutes from here to the front entrance. To the throne room. We’ve got time.”

It was a little like old times.

Old times which were short lived, but were memorable, at least.

Undyne stepped forward. “I’ve gotta stay here and help these Monsters… some of ‘em are really hurt bad.” She peered at Asriel carefully. “You’re going with MK?”

“I th-think I’m strong enough. Been through a lot, y’know?”

Papyrus grinned and exclaimed, “Flowey is the strongest person here! Except for me and Undyne. We’re ROYAL GUARDS, which gives us priority.”

“It’s A-Asriel,” the prince stammered. “Can you stop calling me Flowey? Please?”

Papyrus frowned as best as his skull could allow. “...Asriel. Asriel! That’s your name. I absolutely need to stop forgetting that.”

The figures under the house were in a hurry, especially Undyne, whose somewhat underwhelming healing magic was taking its sweet time with the Monsters who were hurt. Most of all was Frisk, who could barely keep their head level. They said, “I’d g-go with you two, but… I’m… yeah.”

“It’s OK,” said Asriel. “We’ll come back for everyone. I-If this works.”

“This had better work,” said Undyne.

MK was unsure. He was less than unsure. He was certain he was wrong. Yet his footsteps guided him up into the tunnel again, and into the bedroom away from the shouts and voices and Gerson and Papyrus and Undyne and Frisk, and the room was ashen and dimmer than usual after the rug had been kicked aside. Both Asriel and MK shivered in the unheated house that was supposed to house dozens, and slid into the hallway without a peep, and slid out the front door without a sound.

Then, once they were outside, and the battered prince saw the sun, he took a deep breath and leaned on MK’s side. “This is crazy,” he said. “T-This is… this is really crazy, MK.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, MK, I h-haven’t been inside the mountain for… a long time. Maybe I shouldn’t come.”

MK turned back to Asriel. “Yo, if you can’t, it’s OK. I just… don’t like doin’ crazy things alone, y’know?”

They laughed a little. But only a little, because at any moment Frisk would be back, and at any moment it would be over. At any moment they would be pitted up against an enemy they had never known, and they would lose. In an instant they stopped talking and began to run.

To Ebott.

To the entrance.

(The sky fades away, and although the entrance is grand and massive despite its hidden nature, its darkness and emptiness overshadows you. Or, at least, it used to.)

It was so empty--so empty that Asriel and MK could take a full breath without meaning to, that they could pass by leaps and bounds of the Underground without realizing it. Their footsteps were unsure and even from the very entrance to the front of the Capitol was a terrifying endeavor. Both of them were reminded of their own individual times in the Underground, in a different Underground. One ruled by,

…

Nobody.

Nobody ruled the Underground, thought MK. Nobody kept things orderly. Nobody kept things sane. Nobody was kept happy, nobody had any reason to be happy. Yet all of those things described the world at that time, and none of it made sense at all. Not to MK, not to Asriel, not to anyone. And yet, like the Core’s creator being absent, they never even wondered about it.

Asriel stared at the Capitol. Grey buildings the size of skyscrapers in the human city, but so much more inviting. The two kept walking unflinchingly toward the tunnels leading further into the Underground, and he asked MK, “What are we supposed to do when we get to the Core? What kinda plan are we even supposed to come up with?"

“We’ve just gotta figure out who made it,” MK replied. “B-Because that’s probably what Frisk meant, about a Royal Scientist. I mean, you’ve gotta be a scientist to make something that big and complicated, right?”

“Maybe,” said Asriel.

The grey city, which was so familiar and so unfamiliar, fell out of view as the two of them travelled with light footfalls through New Home, through the dead garden, and through the very outermost buildings which were the emptiest after the First Frisk cleared the Underground. Now they were all equally empty, and yet still warm with the presence of Monsters who once resided. Then once they were past all of that they took an elevator, and that was the longest ride of their lives. It ran on backup power as the Core had long ago stopped functioning, and it hung with a sense of abandonment and decrepit lack-of-upkeep, and as they descended, the metal cage roared and swung on its wires like it was trying to get loose. It was prehistoric, that elevator, the first piece of modern technology the Monsters ever built, made to be destroyed in the event of a siege to cut off invaders. It felt like this was nearly its last trip.

The Core did not give off its familiar hum. As MK and Asriel exited the smooth steel doors they were greeted with immense darkness, the kind that only hid more darkness, the kind that stretched across the entire Underground, save for Hotlands far below, through cracks in the floors and grates, which still glowed with molten rock. Asriel had already prepared a spell of light, which emanated from the duo in a semi spherical area, illuminating just the path in front of them, and little else.

“Seems like nobody’s been here in months,” said Asriel.

“Didn’t the Nice Cream Man make something to keep humans out?”

“I don’t remember that.”

MK hummed. “M-Maybe I was imagining things.”

The Core was a maze, purpose-built by who-knows and understood only by a fraction of the population. The moment they started to traverse its depths was the moment they got lost, but both Asriel and MK were comfortable being lost, because that was when they had a chance to forget about everything else. It was their chance to run away, and MK had never stopped running away. They saw a sign that read, ‘offices’, and trailed in its direction, the ethereal clock of a reset ticking down with no deadline. Time passed, and time didn’t passed. They covered a distance and yet made it nowhere at all, for hours, for days, for years, or what felt like decades, sometimes, until it all blurred together, and until their light flashed and faded, and then they were by the rows of offices, awake again after ten minutes of being lost.

Offices, with names like,

Ribbs.

Seez.

Charles.

Oni.

Asgore Dreemurr.

Of course the names had faces, and Asriel could pin a set of eyes (or eye, singular, in Seez’s case) to each one. But in the darkness they were just words, save for his father’s. Asgore had never come to the Core, or at least not as far as Asriel could remember. It stuck out like a sore thumb; his elongated, royal and extravagant name often did. And without an ounce of communication both of the child explorers opened the door to the room with the king’s nameplate, and the interior sharply contrasted the blue metal of the rest of the Core. It was dusty, seemingly filled to the brim with gas, ready to explode. Their presence kicked aside the calm that had previously befallen the Underground and Asgore’s office was no exception. The ceiling rattled. The floor shook. Corners that hadn’t been lit in months were suddenly brought to light as Asriel faced them.

“Didn’t know Dad could be this, uh… tidy,” he said.

(He used to spend days and days alone in his office, writing plans, drawing blueprints. He would bring in Asriel and Chara together to look over parts, as they watched over his shoulder and he sat back in his rickety office chair with a resounding series of creaks. Rarely did the plans have mistakes, and even when they did, it was a little hard to announce them. Although Asgore loved criticism, he never showed it.)

(No, that’s not what happened.)

(That’s not true.)

MK said, “There’s gotta be something in here.”

He used his teeth, and Asriel used his hands, but they moved at the same pace. They tore it open like a book and ripped out every page, ripped out every document and paper and scrap that they could find in the light, long shadows cast by the spell as it swerved around in circles in pace with Asriel’s movements. They found logs. They found folders full of pictures. The pictures reminded MK of somewhere a long ways away, and they were messy and incomprehensible yet fit together in a way nobody would be able to understand, and just staring at one piece of the blueprint was daunting and terrifying. But what caught them off guard was the name, Asgore Dreemurr.

Employee records. Who made the Core? Him. Dad.

Blueprints, and he signed them.

Blueprints, and he was a horrible artist, and he drew them perfectly.

Rows upon rows of text and he typed them all up.

‘Asgore Dreemurr,’ said one paper, ‘created the Core to feed power to the rest of the Underground. His achievement is kept secret on his own accord, for he believes that the endeavor was a result of the efforts of dozens of Monsters, not just himself. He refuses even to take responsibility for leading the project, as he reckons he has never done a very good job of it.’

Signed by him.

Authored by him.

This is Dad’s office. This is Dad’s room. This is Dad’s hallway and Dad’s employees and Dad’s effort and Dad’s entire contraption. This is Dad’s livelihood. This is Dad, worked to the edge of his sanity on a project he will die after completing. This is Dad’s Core.

Asriel coughed and it kicked up a layer of dust as he finished the last paper. “There’s nothing helpful,” he said. “T-There’s… nothing. It says… it says…”

“It says he made the Core,” said MK. “And it doesn’t make any sense. There’s gotta be something else!”

Exhaling, the prince shook his head. “It was fun to try, MK, but... but we were wrong, y’know? Can’t win ‘em all.”

He was weak. MK felt so weak. He was running and he’d hit a wall, and it hurt, and he broke everything in his body. His soul- his heart, his soul, it didn’t matter because he had come to seem very human in recent months- was beating through his chest, and yet his adrenaline and fever had nowhere to escape, so it fell inside himself, and he cried. He didn’t scream but he cried, and he sat up against the king’s desk. They had, at best, an hour. An hour before the end. An hour before Frisk finds the cellar.

“We should… g-get back to the elevator,” Asriel said.

MK murmured, “I’m just… g-gonna stay a little longer. Wait for me, yeah?”

Disappointed, but lacking any method to help, the prince nodded and left.

Then MK left, too.

He was weak. MK felt so weak.

MK felt so weak.

MK ran.

I don’t need to get to the Core. I just need to walk until it’s over. I just need to walk until it’s over which isn’t very long from now. I’m really good at running. I can run so fast, I can almost get away from everything else, I can almost get away from everyone else in the world.

He ran out the Core, through the hotel in the pitch blackness, and down and down into Hotlands where the elevators were broken and he had to go the long way around, illuminated by nothing, kept company by nothing. He didn’t know where he was going and nearly fell into the heat a few times over, stir-crazy, insane, frantic to leave but without anywhere to leave. MK ran until Hotlands went away and until he was nearly unable to see, tears filling his eyes. Forty five minutes, maybe. At best. At best. At best. Maybe Frisk is never coming home, and will never come home to see it. What an arbitrary time limit! The best MK could do was say, ‘any moment now, I’m going to forget any of this happened.’

So he was in Waterfall when he broke, and he broke, and he broke, and he ran through every thought in his mind until it collided, and until he fell down the supercollider of the Core in a split second. The natural lighting of the plants faded away, faded away into mud, faded away into,

and then he had to,

and then he was,

and then he was on the ground in front of the river, and on a boat in front of him was the hooded figure he had always known.

“You look troubled, friend,” said River Person.

“Y-Yeah,” sputtered MK.

“I believe it would be best if you took a ride with me.”

The child on the ground sobbed. The shadow on the boat did not move, and waited for his solemn figure to slowly hop onto the flat wooden surface, like it always did. But it did not speak the same words as it always did, and instead River Person said, “I have known you in many places and many times. I know few Monsters as enthusiastic or rowdy as you. In fact, in your haste to explain your daily habits to me, you have never once asked me a question. Now, as things seem dire, perhaps there is something you would like to know.”

“...Ha.” MK laughed. “I thought the Underground w-was empty, yo. Thought you left.”

“Child, you do have a question, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess.” He took a breath and cleared his eyes of tears with his tail. The gentle rocking of the boat underfoot was familiar. “I… I w-wanna know, uh. R-River Person, who made the Core? Who REALLY made the Core?”

“A good question,” said River Person, pausing. “You are smart. You can do better.”

“What, a better question? T-That’s the best I’ve got.”

It seemed like, even beneath the featureless hood, it managed a grin. “Perhaps the best question you can say. The best you can put into words. But there is something else you wonder even more. Something you have wondered for a very long time, and something you have a great deal of trouble explaining.”

MK shook his head. “I-I’ve already told you everything like that.”

“Ah. I do not mean to intrude.”

The water flowed, but the small plank of wood kept very steady. It was cold in the Underground, especially in Waterfall, and as he thought about that question MK shook. His shirt flapped gently in the still air. He thought and he thought, and his mind wandered, and he spoke without meaning to. “I was happy in the other ending,” he said. “All alone, all by myself. A-And everything was… good. Best it’s e-ever been, y’know? And… a-and I couldn’t have been alone, right? How could I have been alone?”

“That is better,” said River Person.

The ceiling collapses, and in an instant all he can see is the endless sky, and then in another all he can see is the stars; in no time at all MK shakes against the boat as the world rocks and breaks and shatters. Above his head the hooded figure whistles peacefully, and under the pain all MK wants to do is sleep, but slowly the stars turn to light, moving faster and faster. In an instant he sees them and he whispers their names, and the accretion disk forms underneath his feet, and like an infinite source of magic the landscape around him turns into a reel of film, flipping images and sounds as they whirr past the river, travelling endlessly in every direction.

In an instant he knows, and like the sky and the stars, in another instant MK is just as confused as ever. River Person whistles, and the moving pictures around them follow suit.

“Where are we going?” asked MK, his mind a haze.

Things calmed as the river formed in space again, and they were trailing along the blue in Waterfall, calm as empty space. “A place you have likely never been. A friend of mine once called it, ‘Room 336’.”

“Why?”

“Because there were three hundred and thirty five before it.”

MK’s body chattered. He stood up in the boat as it swung across the calm waters with perfect coordination. “A-And why are we going there?”

“First, I must explain something. A different friend of mine once stated that silence is the most necessary part of conversation. A very simple concept. Without dark, there cannot be light. Without space, there cannot be anything new. Without potential, things cannot change. Do you understand?”

He couldn’t shrug, so MK said, “I g-guess, yeah.”

“The Underground is vast. Yet in its vastness, every nook and cranny is full. Except for this lonely tunnel. Perhaps that is where you will find your answer.”

Waterfall’s dimness became dimmer as the river converged into a wall of stone resting against the side of the Underground. The ambient blue dissipated, and all that was left was darkness. But it was not darkness hiding behind itself. In front of MK was nothing. Sheer nothingness. He lost his breath. He lost his mind. He stepped off the boat in a trance and his feet hit something he could stand on, and he stood there.

Stood still.

“Even as we speak, our voices infiltrate the safety. The possibilities we have… they are filling the fabric. This room has not been built yet. It is your decision, now, on how it should be constructed.”

MK said, “How i-is any of this possible? How do you know about this room?”

“Again, child. A question you do not need to be concerned with, yet.”

Then it was frozen again. MK couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

“I don’t know what to put here,” he whispered. “I don’t know what to build o-or construct, or whatever. C-Can’t think of anything good.”

“A memory?” asked River Person.

“No good memories.”

“Home. You must have a home.”

MK shook, but it was not from cold. He was tired again, he was weak again. He needed to run. He wanted to run. “I… n-no. I’ve never had a home my entire life. I-I’ve always run from everything. I g-get to know somebody, I get a friend, for, like, a few months! A-And then I push it away, I run away, b-because I’m just… th-that one kid, y’know? I’ve never had anywhere.”

The room fluttered as light flooded in, spatterings of existence filling its cracks full of hate and pain, and MK cried. “Home,” said River Person. “You remember. Of course you remember.”

He cried.

“Home,” said River Person.

“Of course you remember. It has always been this way. You have never been there, and yet it was the best place you have ever been.”

He cried.

“Home,” said River Person.

“Think of it, and this room will be there.”

Alphys said, “Hey, MK.” Her voice was a little weak. Her fifth year of queen was no less tiresome and excessive than the others, and a human had fallen down only two months before. But her low, scaly figure propped up against a chair matched perfectly with Sans’, who stuck his bony finger into his mouth, licking off the last of the ketchup. Ha. MK laughed. He cried. The world was a flood of sights and New New Home swirled around, both existing and not existing, but the drowsy child didn’t care too much, and let his sister wrap her arms around him. He didn’t feel as alone, any more.

“Oh, G-God, Sans,” she said. “I remember.”

“we were falling. we fell.”

Alphys looked down at MK. “Are… are you okay?”

“what happened, kid? how is any of this happening?”

MK said, “I remember you went off on another ‘time cop’ thing, r-right? And you never came back. And everyone forgot about you. A-And I forgot about you, too.”

Sans couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, but it noticeably dimmed. “so… it’s just like what happened to gaster. we…” He stared around at the ceiling, which was barely holding together.

Alphys sighed, frowning wide and tired. “We went to try and stop the First Frisk. Y-You know, the one that killed everyone. But we messed up, a-and… got pushed into the Core. Like him.”

River Person stood up straighter, and said to the trio, “You are quite lucky to have escaped that limbo. Even if in… such a dire state.”

“river person?” asked Sans, turning around. “man… that’s not really who i was expecting.”

The figure laughed gently. MK began breathing faster, putting every piece together. “D-Did… Did Frisk get the ring?!” he asked.

Alphys said, “Yeah.”

“Frisk is here! F-Frisk is on the surface, hurting people, hurting Monsters! That… that’s the same Frisk, the first one!” 

Both her and Sans attempted to stand, in response to his words, but they were nearly confined to their seats from exhaustion. Nothing made sense. Nothing was clear. Alphys said, “You’ve got to find a way to stop them.”

“I know! A-And… I’ve gotta get you out of here.”

River Person said, “Little can exit this place. Something the size of your palm, perhaps. The size of two palms, at best. There simply isn’t space for much more.”

The interior of the main room, of New New Home, was warm and bright with wooden planks, hand-crafted and lived in. Across the entrance Waterfall blurred in, and in its boat, the rider did not move in the darkness.

MK said, “T-Then… there’s gotta be some other way. There’s gotta be… some other…”

“don’t know if there is, kid,” said Sans, solemn. “what happened to us already happened. trying to change things would cause a paradox. and the universe really, really hates paradoxes, right, al?”

She nodded slowly, holding her brother tight. “Almost as much as Mew Mew 2.”

“it’d just course correct. and the easiest way to course correct… is having us get erased anyway. it’s pretty basic science.”

He needed them. MK needed them both. He ran up to each one and just sat for a while, letting the silence of the room pass them by. There was no time, and time didn’t exist.

“Hey, uh… River Person?” asked Alphys, her chair growing more and more comfortable, as she stared out at Waterfall. “How do you know all of this?”

“It is simply wisdom,” it said.

Sans took a breath. “do you know what happened to others like us? gaster?”

On the boat on the edge of the light, River Person stood. The trio all watched it rock back and forth on its raft, and it spoke.

“W. D. Gaster was scared. To think that, in one moment he was with the person he cared about most, and in another he was in this blackness, this darkness. A void that, despite his best efforts, he could not describe. He was lonely, for millennia, or at least what seemed like millennia. Then, in the dim lack of matter, he saw something, and immediately he began to approach. His amorphous form stuck together for one last movement as he crawled through the void on all-fours. The light in front of him grew and grew until it was the size of a peanut, and then the size of a planet, and then the size of a universe. He sat in the Underground, but not as himself. The Monsters around him did not notice his presence. The world moved as if he did not exist. Effortlessly, the world moved. He could see it all. He could see it from creation to the end, all without his name ever meaning anything.” River Person cleared its breath.

“So long, he spent, powerless. So long, perhaps forever. But eventually Gaster found someplace to go. An emptiness that he could inherit. Salvation. Someplace where, at last, he would be… real. He would not be Gaster, any longer, but he had long ago accepted that fact. There was a patch of emptiness alongside the river. A boat without a rider. An outfit without a wearer. A river that did not have somebody to traverse its length. So that is where Gaster put himself, and where he has always put himself, since the beginning and end of time.” Under his robes, River Person poked his fingers through his palms, which had long ago been removed.

Sans stumbled forward out of his chair. He felt something he hadn’t felt for a long time. He saw something he hadn’t seen for a long time. Alongside, Alphys stood, tears streaming down her snout, and the two used each other as pillars to lean on, staring at the figure on the water. In unison, they called his name, which was the name of the Royal Scientist.

“Ah,” he said, “perhaps that was once what they called me. But I am River Person, now. And there are better things to worry about.”

Alphys murmured, hardly breathing, “Why didn’t you tell us?! Why didn’t… why didn’t you tell him?” She turned to Sans, and back.

“It is not my place to interfere. This moment is the only one where it is appropriate.”

“you… could’ve. you should have.”

“Past tense? Present tense? These are not terms worth using. Not in the state I am in.”

MK stared at the three. His eyes shook like an earthquake as he tried to make out who was in front of him, but it failed. They talked. They talked some more and it all blended together. River Person said, “There is nothing to forgive you for. Things happen as they will.”

River Person said, “For you, and for the child, there is not much time.”

River Person said, “A ring? Perhaps it could escape from here, yes. It is quite small. Small enough to occupy the space I have left open in these hands.”

Alphys and Sans were alive. In a way, they were still gone, and they could barely feel even their own presence. Still that feeling from before didn’t fade. Struggling to stand, they embraced and let their souls swirl with love, all the while the faceless man of the river hardly spoke but to answer their questions, ones they had never previously asked. He seemed so calm, so collected, so unlike the Gaster they had known. But he was undoubtedly similar. The same person, perhaps, buried underneath infinite wisdom and a warped psyche. Their bodies weakened as every moment passed, and New New Home stopped its constant, content vibrations, descending into a terrifying freeze where it did not move and could not move. River Person said, “This place is only a memory that which you can peer through. A memory which is rapidly setting into stone. Soon that is all it will be. A room of stone, one that cannot change and will never change.”

Alphys walked over to where MK was sitting, and her hands were as cold as bone. She bit down a little on her lip, as was usual for her overbite, and said, “You need to save them. Papyrus and Undyne and all the others.”

“How?” he asked, whimpering.

Sans bent down. His hollow eyes were bright, and his grin was wide, even though it lacked power. “there’s a timeline we went to. one where flowey… got better. learned to feel stuff. i know it sounds weird, but… yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

Alphys chuckled. “Flowey might have a method to stop Frisk. He had a version of me make a device that could disable reset powers--you know, temporarily, at least. I don’t know if it still exists if we don’t exist, but that’s the best chance you’ll have.”

“And… how do I get there?”

“The ring has a sort of, uh, history built into it!” she exclaimed in response, excited. “So you can just go to the first destination on the list, i-instead of remembering the coordinates.”

MK took a short breath. “And HOW do I get there?”

Alphys said, “Oh.”

Sans looked down. “i guess you’d have to learn to teleport, kid.”

“L-Learn to… what?! I c-can’t!” He snapped back to anxiety. “Frisk is g-gonna get home and reset any second now!”

“Sans can take you,” said River Person. “He may take you there, but not back.”

“g isn’t wrong, i guess. it’d be a one way trip, but… once you get there, you’d have time. a lot of time. as much time as you need to get back. somehow.”

“Th-the ring suspends your body, too,” said Alphys. “You… won’t really age. It’s like a stasis. Feels weird, but you’ll get used to it.”

MK sobbed. He’d just found them again, he’d just stopped running, and already they were sending him away, never to come back. Never to see them again. His body shook as Sans poked at his own hand, pulling off the metal ring around his finger, and displaying it in his palm to MK, who gently reminded him that he still didn’t have hands. “oh, dang.”

“I, uh…” MK swerved around, displaying the thin end of his tail. “You could fit it on there.”

“Nice one,” said Alphys, tears still staining her eyes, as Sans laughed gently and stuck the device around the appendage. It was loose, and almost fell off. Almost. Their movements blurred as they lost themselves, and slowly Alphys and Sans fell back into the memory, the repeating movements as they sat in their chairs and waited for MK to get home. They became younger and tired, they became Old Alphys and Old Sans. But before they were completely gone, before they were completely static, Sans grasped MK by the shirt and,

Shortcut.

He was alone.

Jarring feeling, so jarring, someplace else, someplace completely different. His soul was jelly, bouncing back and forth and struggling to adjust. An Underground. Another ending. Far away, far disconnected, and yet in an instant he was there, in the abandoned laboratory that Alphys once lived in, although now Alphys and Sans did not exist, and here it was lit brightly with harsh lights. In front of MK, with its back facing him, was a flower with many tendrils and an optimistic, curled grin that he could not see.

Of course, the Fame of Flowey preceded him. To have to introduce himself to a time traveler was out of his element. MK did only some of the talking.

“I don’t know what it was,” said Flowey. “I was going to kill Frisk. Do you have a Frisk? Yeah? Well, you know, sometimes that kid’s not so bad. But I thought I needed their soul to… feel, again. And I was going to, I was just a moment away, and then something stopped me. I don’t know what it was! It stopped me, Frisk bumped my face, and everything made sense all at once.”

“Something? A-Alphys, or Sans. It must’ve been Alphys and Sans.”

“Who?”

“Just… believe me when I say, they’re really awesome. B-But they got erased from existence. And they sent me here to get the, uh… d-device! The one that disables Determination.”

Flowey sunk into the ground a bit. “That thing? Sorry, kid. Already used it.”

“Used it? Can’t you just make another one?”

“It showed up in the Underground one day. Nobody knows who made it.” He considered for a moment, and bit his mouth. “Maybe it was one of those two crazies you’re on about.”

MK groaned, still struggling for breath, still displaced and off-kilter. “Yeah, it was.”

And they talked.

And they talked for an hour, stuck in that lab with lights that could kill. MK had known Asriel for quite a while, but Flowey was a persona that he had never encountered, and every word spoken was a step into the unknown.

And they talked for two hours.

And they talked for three hours.

“Life’s been great. It’s been three months since the day I realized I could feel again and we still haven’t gotten free, but people are feeling better than ever. I’ve taught ‘em that the outside world isn’t as good as it sounds, but they still want to leave. I guess it’s in their nature. They haven’t met humans like I have. I mean, they’ve met Frisk, and most of them met the other kids. But the surface is completely different. I mean, they’re only seeing a little example of the YOUNG people of the species! If you take a cup, and fill it full of ocean water, you’re probably not gonna find any crazed murderers. But does that mean there aren’t any crazed murderers in the ocean at all? Of course not! Like I said, it’s just in their nature. They’ve been trapped down here a long time. But so have I! Longer than anyone, even my parents. We’ve got electricity, food, stuff to thrive with. I mean, Frisk says we’ve progressed in technology over the last twenty years just about as much as humans have as a species. There are obviously benefits to being shut off, everyone knows that. And yet they just NEED that outside contact. Well, all I’m saying is, isn’t the outside contact we already have enough? Do we really need all the horrible things humans can do? We get a sample of their best work, of their technology. Sure, it’s a little late, because humans don’t throw out new stuff as often. But… I mean, c’mon, you get what I’m saying, right?”

MK nodded.

“We’ll have to surface… eventually. But right now I’m just trying to wind them down. Give it a couple years. Let us form a PLAN. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I realized this version of the timeline was the last one I’d do. I’ve got ideas. Frisk can be our ambassador, Undyne and Papyrus can keep the Royal Guard and make weapons to defend ourselves from extremist humans, Mom and Dad can keep appearances up. Or I can keep appearances up, I’m good at that. See, it’s still all up in the air, but for a working theory it’s not bad, right? Better than the alternative, which is stumbling blindly out into the sun. Besides, even though I’ve been working on a way out of here, there’s still no perfect way. Science is a kind of slow process since I’m the only person actually working on the project. We have six human souls and that’s almost enough to break it open. Either we kill another kid- which I don’t wanna do, now- or we find a way to make them more powerful. That’s the options I’ve got in mind, at least. Like I said, I’ve only been on this for a couple months. And I just now got working on that problem. Good timing, I guess, MK. You seem like you’re understanding this a lot better than the other version of you. My version, I mean.”

And they talked for six hours.

“Alphys and Sans… sound like some pretty good people, the way you’re describing them. It’s not the hardest thing to believe that they saved me, all things considered. I’d like proof, but you didn’t bring any except that ring on your tail. Cool thing, by the way. I wanna take it apart, later.” MK frowned. “Later! Not right now. You can spend some time here. The lab’s got a lot of beds. Personally, I don’t use a bed, but you can. For as long as you stay. And for as long as I stay. Everyone’s accustomed to me spending a day or two in here without leaving. I’ll have to leave and give speeches, check up on the villages, all that jazz. Should we tell them you’re here? They might be a little freaked out. Some people are still superstitious about time travel after the whole Determination thing.”

“I-I mean, you know them better than me. If you tell them, I c-can go out and… say hi, right? Alphys and Sans were always laughing and joking about their, uh, alternate selves.”

“Heh. I know I’d make fun of all those Asriels you’re talking about.”

And they talked for the rest of the night.

And the next day MK and Flowey started working on the device that had stopped Frisk once before.

And the next day Flowey announced that a time traveler from another dimension had come seeking refuge, and that it was MK. Other MK was enthralled.

And MK rested. And he relaxed.

Him and Flowey began to build a friendship that would last for the rest of their lives. Even though the famous Flowey spoke much more, as he was incredible at talking and mediocre at listening, the two shared so much time together that eventually they were on equal terms. Flowey taught MK about all the sciences he had experienced firsthand, and MK taught Flowey about all the things Alphys and Sans had mentioned in passing and that he had seen from a distance.

He was tired when he arrived, and tired in that other ending where nobody was there to care for him, but slowly his energy returned. Slowly his enthusiasm, and his proficiency, came back, the kind he had when he was drawing blueprints of teleporters and fabricating ways to break the laws of physics. And like Alphys and Sans did, Flowey encouraged it, and fed his habit for more. For knowledge. For invention. His fatigue and fear faded as he met the Underground again.

The hole remained. The Core was still Asgore’s invention. The lab still belonged to Flowey. There was no Royal Scientist, and Papyrus had no sibling.

And MK, he didn’t have a sibling, either. That was the only missing thing Flowey could try to emulate. Alphys had been his mentor, his caretaker, his role model. But she had also been his only family, and that was something that grinning little flower could be, too.

And they talked for the rest of the week.

And MK, he started to fit in. He started to get comfortable. The people were vibrant and yet different, they differed so much from his own home, with Flowey’s pragmatism yet childish nature influencing them all. And yet he couldn’t keep his soul with them. He couldn’t settle. Not with the knowledge that the Queen and her assistant were still gone. So he spent a week talking and making friends and discoveries and warming up to the world, and never once stopped his frantic, panicked attitude.

Flowey said, “They were out of their mind, back there! Obviously exhausted! They didn’t have time to go through all the possibilities. There’s got to be a way to reverse it, MK. Even if it takes a long time… you’ve got time. I really want you to stay and figure it out, while you’ve still got time. They sound pretty smart. I wanna meet them, MK…”

The Fame of Flowey said, to an audience of thousands, “I know none of you remember them, myself included. But MK has been right about everything else! Alphys and Sans, those two… are the reason I’m able to be here, talking to you. They’re responsible for many of the great things in the Underground that went uncredited. As with many things, it might be hard to return them to existence, and return them to our memories. But we haven’t let difficulty stop us before!”

And they talked for the rest of the month.

As MK slowly ascended into a half-comfortable position in the Underground, picking up almost as much fame as Flowey with twice the mystery, so too did he ascend into a previously unfamiliar array of magic. Magic had always been slightly foreign to him; he was barely competent, barely capable. Even in that timeline where the King had died, where his magic saved Alphys’ life, such power was fleeting and hard to grasp. But now he had time. Now he had time, and calm, and encouragement. Flowey was the best teacher he could possibly hope for, even better than Alphys or Sans, because he had used his magic for both the most evil, most cruel sort of deeds (which he struggled to mention without a host of regrets) and the utility-based, mending and healing spells, as well as an impressive number of stunts and tricks using telekinesis and the manipulation of matter. All of this was immensely interesting to MK, and he was a fast learner, but he really only cared about one in particular--teleportation. A way to get back. A way to get between timelines, provided he still had his ring, which had settled against his tail and never fallen off in thirty days of strenuous existence.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about what their explanation was. That… the universe tries to, y’know, course correct. It finds the path of least resistance to make things make sense.”

“If that’s what they said, they probably measured and tested it out in the past,” Flowey responded, and he acted as if he knew Alphys and Sans anywhere near as well as MK did. “They wouldn’t make stuff up on the spot.”

“The path of least resistance, i-if I stop Frisk, is to just… make them be erased. Automatically. So that, y’know, all those events can lead back to me going there, and so on. I can’t stop it, b-because if I stop it, none of anything could happen.”

“Yeah,” said Flowey. His optimistic expression was warm, but it wasn’t warm enough. Nowhere near warm enough. “Sucks.”

The two of them together developed countless small solutions to problems, small conveniences and inventions, draining the Underground of every spare part and electronic in favor of model trains that could transport tools, coffee cups that could extend and retract at will, glass elevators, fireworks, advanced cell phones, better cooking, better optics for their telescopes, more efficient magic weapons, jetpacks, and so on. Although MK saw the use in these inventions he was nowhere near as enthusiastic as Flowey, who always managed to surpass him in his optimism, and who cared solely about the Underground’s spirit staying unbroken and strong in the face of their long solitude. Flowey saw use in the things they did in their spare time, not because they were useful (some were, some weren’t) but because it was a sign that things were still fine, and things were still progressing. For MK, these were hard concepts to grasp. Part of his soul remained in New New Home which could never exist, and as they came up with miracles to both the flighty and mundane problems of life, the idea of rescuing Alphys and Sans slipped further and further away.

“This device,” began Flowey, announcing to the Capitol for the third time that week. “I’ve come to start calling it ‘the weapon’. Something to stop that Frisk in MK’s timeline, his home. The same one I’ve admitted to using on our own Frisk, in my tragic and horrible attempt on their life. Hopefully, MK’s purpose is a better one. Progress is slow on making it again, but we, as the Underground, have waited longer times for less. We’ll have a breakthrough soon, I can feel it.”

And they talked for another month.

MK rebuilt, from memory, the teleporter he had written concepts for in another ending. It required two relays and heated the metal parts so much that they burnt flesh. A failure. He decided it was a failure, despite Flowey’s encouragement to the contrary. “Hey, it’s a start, right?”

“But it was a START when I actually STARTED it, yo. I’ve been working on this for months!”

A piece of the machine sputtered and sparked lacklusterly. “And now you’re months closer to making one that can get you home!”

And they talked for another month.

And another month.

Oh, God, thought MK, every morning and every night. Oh, God, I’ve been here so long I forget what they’re like. I can draw blueprints of the elaborate setups for our weekly fireworks celebrations, I can elaborately illustrate the inner workings of ‘our very own Sans’, the nickname Flowey’s started attributing to the teleporter, but I can’t draw the real Sans, not anymore. I forget what he looks like. I forget what he’s like. I can’t remember how Alphys looks in the robe she wore every day, the royal uniform, the crown. None of it is familiar. None of it appears when I call its name. I don’t remember what the other Nice Cream Man is like. I don’t remember what the other Gerson is like. I don’t remember what the other Frisk is like. I don’t remember what the other Asriel is like.

No, no.

This isn’t Asriel. He’s not Asriel anymore, he’s his own thing, somebody completely different. Asriel’s gone, too. Asriel hasn’t existed here for a long, long time, ever since him and Chara died together. The only person here who’s anything like Asriel is Flowey, and he’s great, and he’s famous, and I’ve been here so long that that’s enough for things to be OK.

I want to go home.

I don’t want to go home.

This is home.

This isn’t home.

He was somewhere else entirely. He became somebody else. He loved Flowey’s company and working in the lab like his sister had always wanted to with Gaster, and he had an infinite array of things to work on, and he became disorganized and then organized again, and his entire body shook as it struggled to grow and failed, and they grew older for a month and then a month and then a month…

MK rarely left the lab. He only escaped its claustrophobia when he went out in front of the Capitol to announce that,

“The device will work. If used on a being with Determination, that power will be disabled for days. I-I’d test it out on Frisk, but, y’know… that’s a little impolite,” said MK. It drew a massive all-encroaching laughter from the crowd. He grinned and nodded to Floewy.

He went out in front of the Capitol to announce that,

“This teleporter can’t leave the bounds of the Barrier, but that’s OK for now. We’ll find another way. In the meantime, with the right coordinates, it can take me, personally, over the timeline gap. T-To… for Alphys and Sans.”

He went out in front of the Capitol to announce that,

“The Nice Cream Man, uh… he’s got somethin’ to say. I think you’ll all like it.”

And the Nice Cream Man went out in front of the Capitol to announce that he had, in his clumsy and amateur work, managed to effectively double the power of his gray soul, in its effective weight and effective energy, for a temporary time. After testing with help from Flowey and MK, he managed to produce the same effect on a human soul. The effect would only last for a nanosecond. “But it should be long enough to open the Barrier with only six souls,” he added.

MK was in front of the Capitol and then he was back in the lab and he was in front of the Capitol and,

and,

His soul snapped as he lost the concept of time.

“Tomorrow,” said Flowey. All at once MK was aware that he was laying on a sofa chair somewhere in Flowey’s lab, slacked and asleep. “You good with that deadline? We’re opening the Barrier tomorrow.”

“Already? I th-thought we were going to wait until we had a plan.”

Flowey’s optimistic grin broke into a gentle laugh. “Yeah, but we DO have a plan now. And didn’t we just have this conversation?”

“I guess.”

MK sighed. “C-Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How long have I been here?”

Flowey sunk into the ground a bit, considering. “Well, it’s November 12th. And you got here last January. So… almost two years, now.”

“Oh.” He paused. “I’m gonna go home.”

“...This is home, MK.”

“I’m tired. I’m just… feeling a little tired. I’m gonna go home with my sister and Sans.”

Then, Flowey’s expression fell a bit. “Didn’t… didn’t you say you decided you weren’t going to go back?”

“I would never say that.” He stood up and stretched out. He felt a million years old. His mind was addled and scrambled and he could barely make out the things in front of him. “I’m just… gonna go. It’s about time I did w-what I’m supposed to.”

“But… you don’t HAVE a time limit. They’re not waiting for you! You can go back to them and they won’t know you were gone for… however long!”

MK frowned and looked off into the wall. “I don’t wanna live forever. I don’t wanna go on like this forever. I just… wanna go home. Where things are normal. Where things make sense.”

Flowey repeated, weaker this time, “This is home, MK.”

The ring still hung around his tail as he shuffled forward toward the exposed machine, tall and refined and hacked together from spare parts. He knew it would function, as he stood on top of its circular aluminum platform and turned.

In front of MK, with its back facing him, was a flower with many tendrils and an optimistic, curled grin that he could not see.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, OK?”

Flowey looked terrified, his eyes empty, his black sclera and single, tiny red pupil growing smaller and smaller as his frown grew bigger and bigger. “What if you don’t come back?! You don’t need to leave! P-Please, MK, don’t… don’t do this!”

He cried.

He cried.

They cried.

“I need to go home.”

“Don’t die, OK?”

Well, MK didn’t hear Flowey say that, but it felt like something Flowey would say, so that’s what he imagined happened as he ripped himself from that timeline to his own.

“Nice one,” said Alphys, tears still staining her eyes,

He snapped back and felt whiplash tear his head into a new realm of pain and anxiety he had never felt before. He was disjointed. He had lost track of every memory he once had, and now they were all slamming back into his face as fast as they could. He saw Alphys’ face as queen, sitting in her chair, relaxing and watching the fireplace. He saw Sans’ face as advisor to the queen, sucking his finger dry of the last bit of ketchup in his bowl before solemnly deciding he was out of ketchup.

MK tapped at his shirt with a bout of telekinesis. In a pocket sewn to its fabric was the sharp, syringe-like device that would stop Frisk, but in the moment it felt like dead weight, because he had been thinking about it for two years and only now had arrived in a place that removed the emptiness in his soul. The blank space that was Alphys and Sans who sat in front of him as if he were not there.

River Person said, “Ah. I see you have retrieved the item you needed.”

Dazed, he turned back to face Gaster. Or River Person. Both names seemed to work. He hadn’t recited what he’d say once he got back, even though he had two years to do so and had been taught by Flowey to plan every speech he ever made. “Yeah. T-Took a while.”

“You do not have much time. Come and hop on.”

So he did.

It was as if the years had not happened. Just as easily as he could accept that he was trapped in another timeline did MK accept that he was back home and that he might not ever leave again. His body was weak. His mind was strong. He had trouble breathing, and in response, River Person silently conjured a spell of healing, to cure the pit in MK’s stomach that was eating him alive. Boundless energy, trying to escape a trapped Monster. Trapped in his own head. Trapped in time.

“I stayed for two years,” he murmured, in disbelief.

“Yes. I recall.”

“I didn’t ever talk to the other version of you,” he murmured, in disbelief.

“Yes. I recall.”

MK leaned up against the front of the boat. It was just familiar enough to be calming as the river slowly drifted by, ever-changing in the dim light of Waterfall, which faded into the bright light of Hotlands.

River Person said, “You seem tired.”

“A-A little.”

“It is a bit exhausting to see so much in such a short time. So long you spent away from here, and yet nothing has changed. Hopefully you realize that you are not the first to have this feeling.”

“Yeah, I… I-I mean, obviously not. We’re… we’re going back to the elevator, right? I gotta get back to Az.”

“Of course.”

MK coughed. “I… thought things would be a lot more… frantic. Crazy. But you’re calm. Everything’s calm.” The sickness in his expression was already fading fast, and so was the feeling of having Flowey right next to him. “I couldn’t find a way to save them. Spent years trying and I never found a way.”

“Time goes very quickly when you have a lot of it, child.”

“Do you… is that what it’s like for you? Having as much time as you want? Knowing everything?”

“That concept has long since evaded me.”

He paused, considering. The boat ride wouldn’t last much longer. “When I still r-remembered you, were we… d-did you, like, teach me stuff? Did I l-lose that afterwards?”

“Your sister taught you to love science. My son taught you to laugh about science. I believe that those are the most important things you ever learned. But no, MK, you lost very little by forgetting about my existence. In the end, all the universe wants is normalcy. Sanity. It fills the holes in its fabric as best it can, as you would repair a ripped shirt.”

“Sans was your s-son?”

“Perhaps. It has been a while. I did not mean to make an assumption like that.”

So the raft set itself next to the edge of the brook, where the water was at its most still, and on the warm rocks of Hotlands MK landed. He turned back, but already he was becoming fluent in the language of urgency, giving River Person a solemn nod before heading back without a response.

MK ran.

He ran upright and determined to move, as if every footstep was prepared, even though none of it was. He ran toward something he already knew, yet his existence was improvised. Insane. 

(All the energy drains out of MK, but he keeps running until all of his body is drained to the core, and then he keeps going for a while after that.)

He ran until he was all the way back at the elevator of the Core, where Asriel stood anxiously, tapping his foot against the ground. He shouted, “It’s been thirty minutes! What were you doing down there, anyway?!”

MK panted, and in one maneuver, lifted the device from his pocket once again, and flailed his tail around to show the ring. “Stuff! I got stuff, that we need. T-To stop Frisk.”

Asriel’s expression lightened up like a bulb. “...Really!? How? What happened?”

“It’s a long thing. I’ll tell you when t-this is over. I just need your help. W-We gotta hit Frisk with this thing while they’re distracted. That’s it.”

The elevator doors swung open at Asriel’s command. “You’re using magic,” he said. “I didn’t know you used magic.”

“I learned,” said MK, stepping inside.

As he had lost the concept of time in the other Underground, MK also lost the concept of travel, and the trip to the throne room and out the cave entrance was as mundane and effortless as taking a breath. Once he had exited, however, and saw the sun which was still drifting toward the horizon, he shook with its power and grinned for the first time in years. It wasn’t a sunset and it wasn’t calm and it wasn’t perfect, and these were all things that he had missed.

Asriel started down the slope, and MK followed.

The figure of the head of the Royal Guard shone against the lantern; her armor was like an array of light-only mirrors, glistening as she hunkered down next to the injured Frisk and hovered her large hands over the numerous, torturous wounds.

“They’re not back yet,” the human said. “I th-think I can talk to the other me. I think I can… try and calm them down. I-I’ve dealt with worse.”

From the hastily-built entrance, MK called, “No, you haven’t.”

On instinct, in her need to protect the people around her, Undyne hurried to the young Monster’s armless form and wrapped her arms around him. He grinned again but broke away, and suddenly the few changes to his apparel became visible, confusing each person in the room equally, even Asriel, who emerged right behind him.

“I don’t know how long we’ve got,” MK said. “I w-wanna explain everything. But I just… first we gotta finish this.”

“You found what you were looking for, kid?”

“Ha. Y-Yeah, kinda.”

So the Monsters in the room, with wide gazes that were begging for answers, did not ask. They held their breath. In fact, as MK explained his basic plan (stick Frisk with the needle), they remained as silent as possible. For some, the fear of a reset was new and terrifyingly unfamiliar. For others, the fear of a reset was so close to their lives that they were, perhaps, even more scared.

MK thought, at least I learned how to talk to a crowd. I was really bad at that before. I guess I spent two years of my life learning how to talk to a crowd.

Undyne was the first distraction, right in the entrance to the house. She readied her spear, but MK told her that it wouldn’t matter, and that she should refrain from trying to kill the human at all, for fear of creating unnecessary problems. To this she was incredulous and even angry, but Asriel agreed, and eventually she accepted the command, standing in front of the door, waiting, waiting.

They had, as it turned out, a while longer than they had expected.

An hour, and then two hours. Soon there was talk that the Monsters had been misled, that Frisk wasn’t coming back at all, that the entire bout of antics was for nothing. Yet Undyne held her ground, and Asriel kept the weapon primed every second of every minute, until it had been forever, and until he had lived forever in the same position, and until the double wooden doors creaked open slowly, revealing the human who had given MK everything, and had taken everything away.

Undyne feigned a fight. Frisk seemed appalled and made fun of her for not having any backup. With minimum effort she was forced to the ground with one point of health, drained, and the human had already begun to move her exasperated form to the bedroom, where MK stood above the hatch as it was splayed open, and Asriel stood next to the door.

Frisk entered.

Asriel thrusted the polearm without meaning to.

Red.

Screams.

Frisk was lying on the ground as the world swerved by. Swerved. Swung. Frisk was somewhere else, delusional, shell-shocked like a bus had hit them. But it’s OK. I’ve felt this bad before. I’ll just load my save.

RESET.

Except it didn’t work. Except the last respite Frisk had, the last thing Frisk had that mattered anymore, didn’t work.

So Frisk was lying on the ground as the world swerved by. Swerved. Swung.

MK was saying something to Asriel about Alphys and Sans.

“I can’t bring them back. B-Because if I try,” he said, “then the universe will get rid of them again, because… because it wants normalcy. It just wants to be normal again. I c-could kill Frisk, but… but they’ll still be g-gone!”

So Frisk was lying on the ground as the world swerved by. Swerved. Swung.

Asriel was saying something to MK about Alphys and Sans.

“What if… I dunno. What if you make… ‘normal’, having them exist? Would that work? I-I’m not an expert, or anything, but…”

So Frisk was lying on the ground as the world swerved by. Swerved. Swung.

“There’s no way! T-There’s no way to do that, ‘cause… because…”

And MK was broken in half like usual. He wished that coming home made things fine again. He wished he could forget. He wished,

he wished he could forget about Alphys and Sans forever, for the rest of his life. Because for all the terrible things that had happened without them, nothing could compare to the feeling that they were gone. He wanted to forget. He wanted to run.

So he came up with a plan that sounded OK in his head, that might have fit the few times he had gone over the science of alternate timelines, stood next to Frisk so that Frisk would be in his area of influence, and thought to himself,

I want to be anywhere but here.

The ring around his tail did not have any history for the timeline in which Alphys and Sans had been erased. He had trouble coming up with a good reason for this, but eventually decided that it was because his last memory of them was before they left for the final time. So as MK took a shortcut out of his timeline and into another one, bringing only the exhausted and paralyzed Frisk, his coordinates were very simple.

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero zero one.

He decided very plainly in his addled mind that he would go through every timeline in existence until he found the right one.

Shortcut.

Zero zero five three.

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero zero one.

So Frisk was lying on the ground as the world swerved by. Swerved. Swung.

“Where are we going?” they said. “What the hell a-are you doing with me? Why haven’t you killed me yet, MK?”

“I j-just wanna go home,” he said.

So Frisk was lying on the ground as the world swerved by.

“They’re gone! There’s no way to bring them back!”

“All I gotta do is… I gotta make it so that ‘normal’ is having you die. I’m still working it out, but… but I think this is gonna work.”

Shortcut.

Zero nine two eight.

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero zero one.

MK said, “You’re going to meet your p-past self. And that causes a paradox. Then I’m going to stop you from killing Alphys and Sans, w-which also causes a paradox. S-See, all the universe wants is to be normal. If it were dumb it’d just… remove all four of you. But it can optimize, y’know? It can preserve fabric.”

Shortcut. It was getting faster. He forgot he was alive.

Four three three six.

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero zero one.

“It gets rid of you a-and your other you, because you’re the worst problem, a-and there’s no good way to fix you. But b-because you’re gone, it only needs to get rid of Alphys and Sans for as long as it t-takes for me to get here. And then, t-to make things normal again, it brings them back as soon as it’s all over. Then, t-the only things it’s missing out on is, like, one Frisk. Doesn’t even have to get rid of the others.”

Zero zero zero one.

Zero zero six three.

Zero zero zero one.

“Ha,” said Frisk, laughing hard against the pain. An infinite amount of time passed. Neither one cared. “You sound really happy about it. You sound l-like you’ve got it figured out, finally. Spent your entire miserable life not having anything make sense. And you make something up so stupid and blindingly hopeful, and naive, coming up with new ideas as you go along, so that you can act like everything’s going to be OK.”

Zero zero nine five.

Eight one one four.

Zero zero zero one.

Then MK stopped counting the coordinates, the number of places they had been. In an instant he saw his entire life and his entire death. He saw the beginning of time and the end of time. He fell into orbit around the black hole and stopped thinking, and stopped existing. He went until he was nothing, and he kept going for a while after that.

“Don’t do this, MK,” said Frisk a few days ago. “If you’re right, you’re making the wrong choice. You don’t get it. You don’t understand what you’re getting rid of.

“Everyone dies.

“Everyone dies, eventually. Everyone has a limited lifespan. Don’t you see? All I’ve done my entire life is preserve them. I’ve given them life. Infinite life. I’ve given them possibility, infinite possibility to expand and grow and evolve! All I do is help them escape their pointlessness, their escapes!

“I give them tragedy. I give them hope and triumph. I make them live forever. I’ve made you live forever, don’t you understand? I’ve seen everything you have. I’ve seen everything you are.”

MK said, “You erased Alphys and Sans from existence. N-Now they never lived at all.”

“Because they RUINED it! They ruined my power! If I didn’t KNOW about dead timelines, I could keep going! I could keep preserving their lives! If they’re so selfish that they’re not willing to die ONCE to save EVERYONE, to save their existence as a whole… then they don’t deserve my help. My love. My LOVE.

“You’re destroying me for nothing. You’re destroying me for people who have a limited existence. Two Monsters who have, at best, saved a few timelines from an apparent ‘end’. What have they done in comparison to me? I made you everything you are. I made everything that is here, at no fee. No cost at all. I made you live an infinite life. MK, don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.

“Listen. Listen to me, for once. I can take you with me. We can live forever. We can see every timeline and have everything we ever wanted. You and I can make them live forever, too. We can bring them up and bring them down, all your friends. You’ll have enough time to invent anything. You’ll have enough time to bring back Alphys and Sans, if that’s what you really want. You know that’s better than killing me. You know I’m right.

“MK, we can live forever. I’ve never had a friend in that way. Somebody who will remember.

“Please. Please don’t kill me.

“Not… not when I’m so close. Not when I’m so close to winning the game.

“I’m so close to seeing everything. I’m so c-close, MK. I’m going to see everything.”

In front of them they saw the entire universe flying by at the speed of light as they whirred through every timeline which had ever existed. They saw everything. They could see everything. Frisk could see everything, and knew it was the end.

“This is… crazy, MK. We’re just kids. We’re both just kids. I don’t want to die yet.”

Shortcut.

He was in Room 336, the 336th room of the Core that Gaster had nicknamed ‘the last room’, the room he started building when Sans was much, much younger. He could breathe again. In front of him was Frisk, and in front of him was Other Frisk, but they were one and the same, and the moment they saw each other they joined in a perfect equilibrium, an amalgamation that melded together like fabric in a press, melding and departing constantly, and fading in and out of pain and existence as they screamed in unison.

In front of him was Alphys and Sans. They looked at him and grabbed him and stopped him from falling over. All at once they knew what had happened, and gently Sans plucked the ring from MK’s tail, and stuck it around his own finger. Frisk screeched. Frisks screeched as they began to leave the world in ruin, tearing it apart at the seams and descending into a singularity. Alphys said to Sans and MK, “We’ve gotta go. N-Now!”

Frisk said, “What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!”

Frisk said, “What att me?!"What abe?!"Whabout me?!"What about mat about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What a me?!"Wheat about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"t me?!"Wout meat bou about mh me?!"What about me?!"What aat?!"What about mbout me?!"What about e?!"What aboutWhh about me?!"What about me?!"What about me?!"Wme?!"Whatat aaboumboute?!"What ?!”

Frisk said, “What a about m!"tae?!"What about me?!"Wme?!"Whatat aaboumboute?!"Wh!"Wheat abbout me?!"Whmeat abohatuat be?!"uut e?!"What aboutWhut mout me?!"What about me?!"Whaat abobout me?about mat abou b!W aat?h ahoe?!"Wot a me?o!"What aboat ?!”hae?!"W!"WWha"tut bt ab!"Wout mh m me?e?!"Wht mbout me?!"Wht me?!"What about me?ut mbout me?!"What aat hat at about me?!"Wott mut me?!"What ae?haab”

Sans said, solemnly, “you’re like us, kid.”

Alphys said, solemnly, “Just another ending.”

Shortcut.

\--

For them, normalcy was very strange. For them it was a bit of a foreign concept. For MK, it was a foreign concept.

The populace in two timelines forgot about Alphys and Sans for a short time and then remembered them again. For MK’s timeline, it was only a matter of days. For Flowey, and his fame, and all of his followers, they had been absent for two years, faded into the background where they were not missed until they were sorely, sorely missed. It is reassuring to see them back. I have often wondered what the world would think of me if they all regained their memories.

What would they think of Gaster, the original Royal Scientist? Would it make them happy to know? Would it make them sad?

It does not matter. Alphys and Sans are eager to help me, but try as they might, and talk as they might, I will likely never know reality again. I do not think it is possible. But I suppose stranger things have happened.

I am only sad for one person, and that is MK. The exhaustion in his body plagued him for months after the incident. He would cry every night, weeping about how he did not want to live forever, and yet that he was scared of dying, and yet that he was scared of losing the people around him. He had Alphys and Sans, and they were the best guides to keeping him sane, returning him to sanity. He has visited Flowey again, many times, but their unbreakable relationship was fleeting in its unbreakable nature, and both of them knew that that was not where MK belonged.

What has stayed the same, however, is that duo, who have known each other for as long as they can remember. They are back in the large house on the surface, and with their presence it has become the wonder it once was, reminiscent of New New Home with its warmth and three dozen inhabitants. Alphys and Sans are still terrified they will lose each other-- more than ever. Yet it has kept them within each other’s arms even tighter, enforced their love even more strongly, and I hope that leads them to be more careful with their escapades. I hope.

I hope that, in the end, the waters mellow out like a lake does when displaced. I hope that they can settle down one day, and perhaps start a family. (Ha!) At the very least, I hope that an incident like the one that erased them never occurs again.

I have kept myself from looking into the future too far. It is my way of feeling as if I am discovering it with them. It is my way of feeling real. And it is calming, not to know how things end.

Or if they ever do end at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. This will probably be the last chapter, but I'll also probably be starting a new series soon which I'll post here and on /utg/.


End file.
